EASTERN 

NICHTS- 

AND  FLIGHTS 

ALAN  BOTT 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 


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in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


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ALIAS  FRITZ  RICHTER 

Photograph  of  Captain  Alan  Bott,  taken  in  Constantinople  while  he 
was  a  prisoner.  Captain  Bott  signed  it  in  the  name  of  "Fritz  Richter, 
First  Lieutenant  in  the  German  Flying  Corps."  While  escaping,  he 
was  able,  by  means  of  the  false  signature,  to  convince  a  Turkish  gend- 
arme tliat  he  was  a  German  officer  wearing  mufti. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS 
—AND  FLIGHTS 

A  Record  of  Oriental  Adventure 

BY 

CAPTAIN  ALAN  BOTT 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  I919,  BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  SIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF 

TRANSLATION  INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


TO 

D.  O.  V. 


til  ^  u  o  o  *# 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prologue.     Through  the  Looking  Glass 3 

CHAPTER 

I.     Pain,  Purgatory,  and  a  Plan 13 

II.     The  Flight  That  Failed 27 

III.  Nazareth;  and  the  Christian  Charity  of  a  Jew  39 

IV.  Damascus;  and  the  Second  Failure.      ...  64 
V.     The  Berlin-Bagdad   Railway;  and  the  Aero- 
planes That  Never  Flew 90 

VI.     Cuthbert,  Alfonso,  and  a  Mud  Village.      .      .  no 

VII.     In  the  Shadow  of  the  Black  Rock  ....  124 

VIII.     Constantinople;  and  How  to  Become  Mad  140 
IX.     Introducing  Theodore  the  Greek,  John  Willie 
the    Bosnian,    and    David    Lloyd    George's 

Second  Cousin 159 

X.     The  Third  and  Fourth  Failures 175 

XL     A  Greek  Waitress,   a  German   Beerhouse,   a 

Turkish  Policeman,  and  a  Russian  Ship.      .  189 

XII.     The  Face  at  the  Window 203 

XIII.  A  Shipload  of  Rogues 213 

XIV.  The  City  of  Disguises 230 

XV.     Stowaways,  Inc 250 

XVI.     A  Russian  Interlude 266 

XVII.     Sofia,  Salonika,  and  So  to  Bed 281 

Epilogue.  A  Damascus  Postscript;  and  Some  Words 
on  the  Knights  of  Araby,  A  Crusader  in 
Shorts,    a   Very   Noble   Ladye,    and    Some 

Happy  Endings 286 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
Alias  Fritz  Richter Frontispiece 


FAaiCG  PAGB 


Captain  T.  W.  White.    ^ 150 

Captain  Yeats-Brown 236 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 


Eastern  Nights — and  Flights 

PROLOGUE 

THROUGH  THE    LOOKING   GLASS 

Most  of  us  who  were  at  close  grips  with  the  Great 
War  will  remember  the  habit  of  speculation  about  life 
on  the  far  side  of  the  front.  Somewhere  beyond  the 
frontier  of  trenches,  we  realized,  were  our  opposite 
numbers — infantrymen,  gunners,  aviators,  staff  officers, 
mess  orderlies,  generals,  captains,  lance-corporals — each 
according  to  character,  rank,  and  duties,  and  to  the 
position  he  occupied  by  reason  of  ability,  courage,  ini- 
tiative, old  age,  self-advertisement,  or  wire-pulling. 
We  saw  them  through  a  glass,  darkly — a  glass  that, 
being  partly  concave,  partly  convex,  and  almost  im- 
penetrable throughout,  showed  us  our  opposite  numbers 
as  distorted  reflections  of  ourselves. 

We  knew  well  that  a  journey  through,  round,  or  over 
this  glass  would  take  us  into  an  unnatural  world  where 
we  should  be  negative  instead  of  positive,  passive  in- 
stead of  active,  useless  scrap-iron  instead  of  working 
parts  of  a  well-constructed  machine.  Yet  we  never 
considered  the  possibility  of  being  obHged,  in  that  un- 
real world,  to  live  a  life  of  impotence.  Our  com- 
panions, now,  might  have  the  bad  luck  to  be  dragged 


4       ' '    EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

there;  but  pupseris.e'pfhormality  would  not  let  us  reckon 
with  such  an  unusual  happening  in  our  own  case. 

And  then,  perhaps,  one  fine  day  or  night  found  us 
isolated  in  an  attack,  or  shot  down  in  an  air  fight;  and 
we  would  be  in  the  topsy-turvy  country  of  captivity. 
Some  of  us,  who  passed  into  this  country  from  the  cu- 
rious East,  tumbled  head  over  heels  upon  adventures 
fantastic  as  those  of  any  imaginative  explorer  of  the 
wonderland  Through  the  Looking  Glass  of  fancy. 

We  were  a  small  band  of  six  scout  pilots,  one  monkey- 
mascot,  and  a  team  of  Baby  Nieuports,  hangared  in  a 
large  meadow  that  was  the  nearest  aerodrome  to  the 
then  front  in  Palestine. 

Slightly  to  the  south  was  the  one-time  German  colony 
of  Sorona,  with  houses  empty  but  for  ugly  furniture 
and  ornaments,  left  behind  when  the  routed  Turco- 
Germans  scurried  up  the  coast-line  after  Allenby's 
victory  at  Gaza.  A  few  miles  north  was  the  trench- 
line,  a  few  miles  west  were  row  upon  row  of  sand-dunes, 
a  sea  of  that  intense  blue  which  is  the  secret  of  the  Syrian 
coast,  and  the  ancient  port  of  Jaffa,  misnamed  "The 
Beautiful." 

The  particular  task  of  our  detached  flight  of  Nieu- 
ports was  always  to  be  ready,  between  dawn  and  sun- 
rise, to  leap  into  the  air  at  a  moment's  notice  and  climb 
toward  whatever  enemy  aircraft  were  signalled  as  ap- 
proaching from  the  north.  Usually  we  flew  in  pairs,  for 
the  work  was  of  the  tip-and-run  variety,  and  needed, 
above  all  things,  speed  in  leaving  the  ground  and  speed 
in  climbing;  and  a  larger  party  would  have  been  slower, 
because  of  the  exigencies  of  formation  flying. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  5 

"A  A  A  four  H.  A.  flying  S.  toward  Mulebbis  io,cxx) 
feet  A  A  A,"  would  be  telephoned  by  an  anti-aircraft 
battery.  The  bell  (made  out  of  a  Le  Rhone  cylinder) 
would  clang,  the  "standing  by"  pilots  would  fasten 
caps  and  goggles  as  they  raced  to  their  buses,  the  me- 
chanics would  swing  the  propellers  into  position  as  the 
pilots  climbed  into  the  cockpits,  the  engines  would 
swell  from  a  murmur  to  a  roar;  and,  three  minutes 
after  the  sentinel-operator  had  scribbled  the  warning, 
two  Nieuports  would  be  away  across  the  sun-browned 
grass  and  up  into  the  cool  air.  A  climbing  turn,  at 
about  100  feet,  and  they  would  streak  upward,  at  an 
angle  of  45  degrees,  to  the  air  country  above  Mulebbis. 
And  the  next  two  pilots  on  the  waiting  list  would  come 
within  easy  reach  of  their  flying  kit. 

Even  with  the  fast-climbing  Nieuport  it  was  difficult 
indeed  to  reach  a  height  of  10,000  to  12,000  feet  in  time 
to  get  to  grips  with  machines  which  were  at  that  height 
while  we  were  reading  month-old  newspapers  on  solid 
earth.  But  practice  and  cooperation  with  anti-aircraft 
gunners,  by  means  of  directional  shots,  enabled  us  to 
find  the  black-crossed  trespassers  often  enough  to  inocu- 
late them  with  a  wholesome  fear  of  venturing  any  dis- 
tance beyond  the  lines. 

At  the  period  of  which  I  write — March  to  May,  191 8 — 
it  was  not  too  much  to  say  that  enemy  machines  in 
Palestine,  even  when  in  superior  force,  never  fought 
our  Bristol  Fighters,  S.  E.  5's,  or  Nieuports,  unless  there 
was  no  chance  of  keeping  at  a  safe  distance.  Once, 
three  of  us  were  able  to  chase  five  German  scouts  and 
one  two-seater  for  twenty  miles  over  enemy  country 
until  they  reached  their  hangars  at  Jenin,  out-dived  us 


6  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

because  of  their  heavier  weight,  and  landed  without  the 
least  pretence  of  showing  fight;  while  we  relieved  our 
feelings  by  looping  the  loop  over  their  aerodrome. 

Those  were  pleasant  days,  in  pleasant  surroundings. 
Our  tents  were  pitched  in  an  orange  grove,  which  pro- 
vided shade  from  the  midday  sun,  privacy  from  the 
midnight  pilfering  of  Bedouins,  and  loveliness  at  all 
times.  The  fruit  had  just  ripened,  and  by  stretching 
an  arm  outside  the  tent-flap,  one  could  pick  full-blooded 
giant  oranges.  Passing  troops  bought  at  the  rate  of 
five  a  penny  the  best  Jaffas,  stolen  from  our  enclosure 
by  young  imps  of  Arabs. 

In  the  heat  of  afternoon  the  four  of  us  who  were  not 
waiting  for  the  next  call  would  mooch  through  the 
orange-trees  for  a  siesta;  and  in  the  cool  of  evening 
we  would  drive  to  the  sands  for  a  moonlight  bathe  in  the 
Mediterranean.  For  the  rest,  one  could  always  visit 
Jaffa,  where  were  some  friendly  nurses,  and  a  Syrian 
barber  who  could  cut  hair  quite  decently.  Apart  from 
these  attractions,  however,  and  the  mud  hovel  that 
may  or  may  not  have  been  the  house  of  Simon  the 
Tanner,  JaflFa  was  just  like  any  other  town  in  the 
Palestine  zone  of  occupation,  with  its  haphazard 
medley  of  Arabs,  Jews,  and  Syrians,  all  bent  on  getting 
rich  quick  by  exploiting  that  highly  exploitable  person, 
the  British  soldier. 

On  the  evening  before  my  capture  I  bathed  in  the 
company  of  a  German  cadet;  a  circumstance  which  I 
thought  unusually  novel,  not  foreseeing  that  my  next 
bathe  would  also  be  in  the  company  of  a  German, 
although  under  very  different  conditions. 

One  Offizierstellvertreter  Willi  Hampel  had  been  shot 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  7 

down  and  captured,  and  was  in  the  prisoners'  compound 
at  Ludd.  It  was  decided  that  before  forwarding  Ham- 
pel  to  Egypt,  the  best  way  to  milk  him  of  information 
would  be  for  another  aviator  to  discuss  aeronautics 
on  a  basis  of  common  interest;  and  I  was  detailed  for  the 
duty.  This  rather  went  against  the  grain;  but  Willi 
knew  neither  French  nor  English,  and  I  was  the  only 
pilot  in  the  brigade  who  could  speak  German,  so  that 
there  was  no  alternative.  From  his  cage  I  motored 
Willi  to  lunch  in  our  mess,  showed  him  our  machines 
and  our  monkey,  and  even  took  him  to  tea  with  an 
agreeable  compatriot,  a  beautiful  German  Jewess  who 
was  the  landlady  of  some  houses  at  Ramleh. 

The  information  he  let  sHp  was  not  very  illuminating 
— a  few  truthful  statements  about  machines,  pilots,  and 
aerodromes,  and  a  great  many  obvious  lies.  But  his 
opinions  on  our  aviators  and  machines  were  interesting. 
Our  pilots  were  splendid,  but  too  reckless,  he  thought. 
As  for  the  machines,  the  Bristol  Fighter  was  the  work 
of  the  devil,  and  to  be  avoided  at  all  costs;  the  R.E.8 
might  safely  be  attacked  unless  it  were  well  protected; 
the  British  single-seaters  were  good;  but  the  German 
Flying  Corps  regarded  the  B.  E.  types  as  sehr  komisch. 

As  Willi  was  well-behaved  and  occasionally  informa- 
tive, and  as  he  had  been  a  flying  contemporary  of  mine 
on  the  Western  front  in  191 6  and  191 7,  I  took  him  for 
a  sea-bathe  before  he  went  back  to  his  cage,  while 
taking  the  precaution  to  swim  closely  behind  him. 

Next  day  the  heat  was  intense,  so  that  I  was  glad  in- 
deed when  the  arrival  of  an  A.E.G.  from  the  north  gave 
me  the  chance  to  climb  to  the  cool  levels  of  8,000  to 
10,000  feet,  flying  hatless  and  in  shirt-sleeves.   The  tres- 


8  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

passing  two-seater  spotted  us,  and  retired  before  we 
could  reach  its  height. 

But  the  next  turn  of  my  flying  partner  and  me,  in  the 
late  afternoon,  brought  us  the  good  fortune  of  sending 
a  Hun  bus  to  earth — from  sheer  fright  and  not  out  of 
control,  unfortunately — in  open  country.  I  was  well 
content  on  landing,  for  the  atmosphere  was  cooler 
and  almost  pleasant,  and  my  day's  work  should  have 
been  done. 

But  a  pony,  a  monkey,  and  mischance  conspired  to 
send  me  beyond  the  lines  for  the  third  time  that  day, 
and  the  last  time  for  many  months.  Instead  of  leaving 
the  aerodrome  at  once  I  remained  to  play  with  Bohita, 
the  marmoset  mascot.  Ten  minutes  later  the  bell 
clanged  a  warning.  One  of  the  waiting  pilots  raced  to 
his  machine,  and  was  away;  but  the  other,  mounted  on 
an  energetic  little  pony,  was  chasing  a  polo  ball.  The 
pony,  being  jerked  backward  suddenly,  reared  up  and 
threw  its  rider.  Seeing  that  he  must  be  hurt,  or  at 
any  rate  shaken,  I  climbed  into  his  machine  and  sent 
word  that  I  would  replace  him,  so  that  no  time 
should  be  wasted.  It  was  then  about  one  hour  before 
sunset. 

The  first  Nieuport  had  a  good  start,  but  the  pilot 
was  new  to  the  game,  and  failed  to  see  the  white  pufFs 
from  directional  shots  fired  by  the  nearest  A.A.  battery. 
The  last  I  saw  of  his  bus  was  as  it  climbed  due  east, 
with  the  apparent  intention  of  sniiSing  at  a  harmless 
R.E.8.  to  see  if  it  were  a  Hun,  and  without  noticing 
when  I  continually  switch-backed  my  machine  fore  and 
aft,  as  a  signal  that  a  real  Hun  was  near.  I  therefore 
left  what  should  have  been  my  companion  craft  to  its 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  9 

own  amusement,  and  climbed  toward  the  British  anti- 
aircraft bursts. 

At  about  9,000  feet  I  reached  their  level,  and  picked 
up  the  intruder — a  gray-planed  two-seater  of  the  latest 
Rumpler  type.  When  I  was  still  some  800  yards  dis- 
tant its  pilot  swerved  round,  and,  holding  down  his 
machine's  nose  for  extra  speed,  raced  back  northward 
rather  than  be  forced  to  fight.  I  streaked  after  it,  be- 
yond the  trenches. 

Now  the  Rumpler  was  faster  than  my  Nieuport,  but 
was  slower  on  the  climb.  My  only  chance  of  catching 
up,  therefore,  was  first  to  gain  height  and  then  to  lose 
it  again  in  a  slanting  dive,  with  engine  on,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Boche;  and  to  repeat  the  tactics.  Although 
each  dive  brought  me  a  little  closer,  this  method  was 
a  slow  business.  I  remember  passing  Kilkilieh  and 
seeing  Shechem,  and  still  being  outside  machine-gun 
range  of  the  black-crossed  bus  ahead. 

It  was  at  a  spot  west  of  Shechem,  and  about  twenty 
miles  from  the  lines,  that  I  got  my  chance.  By  then 
we  had  nosed  down  to  6,000  feet.  Being  able  to  ma- 
noeuvre twice  as  quickly  as  the  big  two-seater,  the  little 
Nieuport  was  soon  in  a  ** blind-spot"  position,  and  I 
could  attack  from  a  sideways  direction,  opening  fire 
at  80  yards.  The  Rumpler  dived  almost  vertically 
out  of  the  way,  and  I  overshot. 

I  was  turning  again,  when  from  above  came  a  succes- 
sion of  raps — tatatatatat,  tatatat,  tatatatatat — the  unmis- 
takable tap-tapping  of  aerial  machine-gun  fire.  I 
looked  up,  and  saw  three  scouts  dropping  toward  me 
from  a  cloud-bank. 

Swerving  right  round  on  an  Immelman  turn  I  man- 


lo  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

aged  to  get  underneath  the  nearest  scout  as  it  flattened 
out.  I  had  just  pulled  down  my  top-plane  Lewis  gun, 
and  was  preparing  to  fire  a  long  burst  upward  into  the 
belly  of  the  scout,  when — poop ! — my  petrol  tank 
opened  with  a  dull  thud.  The  observer  in  the  Rumpler 
had  fired  from  a  distance  of  more  than  300  yards  (far 
outside  what  is  the  normally  effective  range  for  aerial 
fighting),  and  some  of  his  bullets  had  ripped  through 
my  tank — the  only  circumstance  which,  at  that  mo- 
ment, could  have  put  my  Nieuport  out  of  action.  The 
petrol  gushed  over  my  trousers,  and  swirled  round  the 
floor  of  the  cockpit. 

I  turned  south,  and  was  ready  to  make  a  last-hope 
eflFort  to  reach  the  trenches  before  all  the  fuel  had  dis- 
appeared, when  I  received  a  second  shock.  On  looking 
over  the  side,  I  was  horrified  to  find  that  underneath  the 
tank  the  fuselage  was  black  and  smouldering.  Next 
instant  some  wicked-looking  sparks  merged  into  a 
little  flame,  licking  and  twisting  across  the  centre  of 
the  fuselage. 

A  thrill  of  fear  that  was  so  intense  as  to  be  almost 
physical  went  through  me  as  I  switched  off,  banked  the 
bus  over  to  the  left  as  far  as  the  joystick  would  allow, 
and,  holding  up  its  nose  with  opposite  rudder,  went 
down  in  a  vertical  side-slip — ^the  only  possible  chance 
of  getting  to  earth  before  the  machine  really  caught  fire. 

The  traditional  "whole  of  my  past  hfe"  certainly  did 
not  flash  before  me;  but  I  was  conscious  of  an  intense 
bitterness  against  fate  for  allowing  this  to  happen  one 
week  before  I  was  to  have  returned  to  Cairo  the  Neu- 
tral, where  they  dined  and  cocktailed,  and  where  the 
local  staff"  officers  filled  the  dances  arranged  for  the 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  ii 

poor  dear  lonely  young  officers  on  leave  from  the  front. 
And  I  shouted  blasphemies  into  the  unhearing  air. 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  I  was  exquisitely 
afraid  as  the  Nieuport  slid  downward  at  a  great  speed, 
for  of  all  deaths  that  of  roasting  in  an  aeroplane,  while 
waiting  for  it  to  break  up,  has  always  seemed  to  me  the 
least  attractive.  But  the  gods  were  kind,  for  by  the 
time  I  reached  a  height  of  500  feet  the  violent  rush  of 
air — ^which  incidentally  boxed  my  ear  painfully — had 
overwhelmed  the  flame  and  swept  it  out  of  existence. 
The  fuselage  still  smouldered,  however,  and  after  right- 
ing the  bus  (now  completely  emptied  of  petrol)  I  lost 
no  time  in  looking  out  for  a  landing-place. 

This  was  a  hopeless  task.  Below  was  rocky  moun- 
tainside, contoured  unevenly,  and  possessing  neither  level 
nor  open  spaces,  and  scarcely  any  vegetation.  There 
was  just  one  patch  of  grass,  about  fifteen  yards  long;  and 
although  this  was  much  too  small  for  a  landing-ground,  I 
chose  it  in  preference  to  bouldered  slopes  or  stony  gorges. 

After  pancaking  down  to  the  fringe  of  the  brown 
grass  the  Nieuport  ran  uphill.  It  was  heading  for  a 
tree  trunk,  when  I  ruddered  strongly  to  avoid  a  colli- 
sion, swerved  aside,  and — crash  !  crack  !  splinter  ! — 
banged  into  the  face  of  a  great  rock.  Of  what  came 
next  all  I  remember  is  a  jarring  shock,  an  uncontrolled 
dive  forward  against  which  instinct  protested  in  vain, 
an  awful  sick  feeling  that  lasted  a  couple  of  seconds, 
and  the  beginnings  of  what  would  have  been  a  colossal 
headache  if  unconsciousness  had  not  brought  reKef. 

Consciousness  returned  dimly  and  gradually.  First 
of  all  I  saw  the  rock  on  which  my  head  was  lolling;  but 


12  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

I  had  no  sense  of  unity,  nor  could  I  feel  any  bodily 
sensations  except  an  oppressive  want  of  breath.  I 
twisted  my  neck  and  looked  up  at  the  sky,  and  some- 
how realized  that  the  sun  must  have  set.  Then  I 
noticed,  quite  impersonally,  that  a  band  of  ragged 
Arabs  were  climbing  toward  me.  Most  of  them  carried 
rifles,  and  all  had  pistols  or  knives  protruding  from  their 
sashes  and  ammunition  belts.  The  foremost  had  un- 
sheathed a  long  blade,  which  he  fingered  appraisingly 
as  he  advanced  at  a  quick  walk. 


CHAPTER  I 

PAIN,   PURGATORY,   AND  A  PLAN 

As  MY  senses  became  clearer  the  feeling  of  oppression 
in  my  chest  grew  more  and  more  acute,  and  I  had  to 
struggle  desperately  for  breath. 

Yet  I  failed  to  realize  that  I  was  directly  concerned 
in  the  Arabs'  intentions  and  actions,  and  looked  at  the 
motley  group  from  the  detached  point  of  view  of  a  film 
spectator.  They  were  an  unkempt  group,  with  ragged 
robes  and  dirty  headdresses  and  straggling  beards  and 
unfriendly  eyes — ^the  sort  of  nomads  who,  during  the 
lawless  days  of  war  would,  and  did,  cheerfully  kill 
travellers  for  the  sake  of  a  pair  of  boots,  a  dress,  or  a 
rifle.  They  had  between  them  a  strange  variety  of 
arms — ^guns  of  every  size  and  shape,  belts  of  close- 
packed  ammunition,  revolvers  and  bone-handled  pistols, 
and  curved  knives. 

And  the  foremost  Arab  continued  to  advance,  while 
fingering  the  drawn  blade  of  his  knife.  He  was  only  a 
few  yards  distant  when  another  and  older  man  stopped 
him  with  a  shout.  The  man  with  the  shining  blade 
answered  heatedly.  A  general  argument  followed,  in 
which  most  of  his  companions  took  part. 

At  that  time  my  knowledge  of  Arabic  was  of  the 
slightest,  and  in  any  case  I  was  not  in  a  condition  to 
grasp  the  meaning  of  their  words.     Yet  instinct  and 

13 


14  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

deductions  from  their  pantomime  made  me  certain  that 
they  were  debating  a  rather  debateable  point,  namely 
— ^whether  somebody  should  be  killed  and  stripped,  or 
merely  stripped,  or  whether  it  would  be  more  worth 
while  to  hand  him  over  alive  to  the  Turks,  in  return 
for  baksheesh. 

And  again  I  did  not  regard  myself  as  interested  in  the 
deliberations,  nor  was  I  the  least  bit  afraid,  being  still 
under  the  spell  of  cinematographic  detachment.  When 
the  Arabs'  argument  was  settled  beyond  question  by  the 
sudden  appearance,  on  a  near-by  slope,  of  a  detachment 
of  Turkish  soldiers,  I  regarded  the  scene  much  as  if  it 
had  portrayed  a  film  sheriff,  with  comic  sheepskin- 
booted  posse,  riding  to  rescue  the  kidnapped  maiden 
from  the  brigands. 

The  dozen  Arabs  stood  sullenly  aside  as  four  mounted 
officers  arrived,  followed  by  a  body  of  running  soldiers. 

*' Anglais?"  said  a  young  officer  as  he  dismounted. 

And  the  mental  effort  of  asking  myself  if  I  were  Eng- 
lish brought  back  most  of  my  senses  and  understanding, 
and  I  discovered  that  I  was  intensely  uncomfortable. 
The  struggle  for  breath  was  almost  insupportable,  a  sear- 
ing pain  permeated  my  right  thigh,  my  head  felt  as  if  it 
were  disintegrating.  I  tried  to  move,  but  an  implacable 
weight  held  firmly  everything  but  my  head,  one  arm,  and 
one  leg.  ''Anglais?'*  repeated  the  young  officer.  I 
tried  to  speak,  but  failed,  and  could  only  nod,  miserably. 

The  soldiers  got  to  work  behind  me;  and  first  the 
weight  on  my  chest,  then  that  on  my  thigh,  lifted.  Two 
officers  helped  me  to  rise,  and  one  of  them  felt  my  face. 

"Not  so  bad.  I  am  a  doctor.  I  will  bandage  it,"  he 
said,  in  French. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  15 

I  searched  to  find  what  was  not  so  bad,  and  dis- 
covered that  all  this  while  I  had  been  seeing  through 
the  right  eye  only,  for  the  left  was  screwed  up  tightly, 
with  a  swollen  forehead  overhanging  it.  When  the 
doctor  let  go  my  arm  to  fetch  some  dressing  from  his 
horse,  I  collapsed,  because  one  thigh  would  not  perform 
its  work. 

I  fell  among  pieces  of  the  most  completely  wrecked 
aeroplane  I  have  ever  seen.  After  hitting  the  rock  the 
machine  had  evidently  crashed  to  starboard,  so  that  I 
was  thrown  sideways  over  the  top  plane.  The  star- 
board wings  were  matchwood,  the  struts  on  the  port 
side  had  snapped,  and  the  fuselage  was  twisted  into  a 
wide  curve,  a  corner  of  the  rock  having  cut  through  one 
longeron  and  bent  another.  None  of  the  main  parts — 
planes,  fuselage,  centre-section,  rudder,  or  elevator — 
was  whole,  and  all  were  intermingled  with  bits  of  wire, 
splinters  of  wood,  and  tattered  fabric.  As  for  the  en- 
gine, it  had  fallen  clean  out,  and  was  partly  buried  in 
earth.  It  was  the  engine  that  had  weighed  so  pain- 
fully on  my  right  thigh,  while  the  forward  end  of  the 
fuselage  pinned  down  my  chest. 

I  thought  of  burning  these  remains  by  throwing  a 
lighted  match  among  them  suddenly,  but  refrained, 
firstly  because  I  had  no  match,  and  secondly,  because 
there  was  nothing  worth  the  burning.  The  soldiers 
had  already  taken  the  instruments  from  the  dashboard; 
and  one  of  them,  I  noticed,  had  broken  off  the  joy- 
stick for  a  souvenir. 

The  doctor  bound  up  my  face  and  helped  me  to 
mount  a  mule,  and  we  left  the  Arabs  to  their  scowls  of 
disappointment  at  being  cheated  out  of  loot.    All  this 


i6  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

while  I  had  been  exceptionally  well  treated  by  the  offi- 
cers in  Turkish  uniform.  Not  one  had  spoken  roughly, 
nothing  was  taken  from  me,  and  even  my  pockets  were 
not  searched.  Could  it  be  that  the  Turks  treated  their 
prisoners  well  instead  of  badly?  Even  on  the  British 
side  of  the  lines  we  heard  stories  of  how  Turkish  soldiers 
had  killed  British  wounded,  how  Turkish  officers  had 
threatened  newly  taken  prisoners  with  death  if  they 
did  not  give  up  all  they  possessed,  and  how  everybody's 
money  and  most  people's  boots  were  stolen  immediately 
they  were  captured;  although  we  did  not  hear  anything 
like  the  damnable  truth  of  the  Turks'  atrocities.  The 
mystery  soon  explained  itself. 

*^ Est'Ce-que  les  Anglais  viendront  hientot?'*  said  the 
young  officer  who  had  first  spoken. 

''Quisait?'' 

*^Moi,  je  Vespere  hien,  parce  que  je  suis  Armenien, 
Nous  sommes  tous  des  Anglais  ou  des  ArahesJ' 

I  had  been  lucky  enough  to  fall  among  Arabs  and 
Armenians,  whose  officers  were,  one  and  all,  pro-British. 
They  were  a  labour  unit,  explained  the  young  Armen- 
ian, and  their  work  was  to  make  roads  and  tracks  across 
the  hill-country.  Like  all  the  conscript  Armenians, 
Greeks,  and  Jews,  and  most  of  the  Arabs,  they  had  not 
been  sent  to  the  fighting  front  because  most  of  them 
would  have  deserted  to  the  British  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. The  doctor  who  had  dressed  my  face  was  a  Jew. 
The  commandant,  whom  I  would  meet  at  the  camp, 
was  an  Arab,  and  had  an  intense  love  for  the  British. 
But  he  would  not  dare  pretend  to  show  too  much  friend- 
liness, because  some  of  the  men  acted  as  spies  for  the 
Turks. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  17 

The  camp  sprawled  in  a  hollow  between  two  hills 
without  any  semblance  of  order.  The  men  were  squat- 
ting at  their  evening  meal,  in  little  parties,  each  man 
dipping  his  fingers  into  the  large  bowl  in  the  centre  of 
his  group.  The  Arab  commandant,  a  fat  man  with  a 
good-humoured  face,  was  in  front  of  his  tent,  awaiting 
our  arrival. 

He  looked  at  me  with  grave  curiosity  on  learning  that 
I  was  English,  and,  through  an  interpreter,  greeted 
me  ceremoniously.  He  was  sorry  indeed,  he  said,  for 
my  misfortune,  and  he  hoped  my  hurts  were  not  seri- 
ous. He  had  little  enough  hospitality  to  offer,  but  it 
would  be  a  privilege  to  make  me  as  comfortable  as  pos- 
sible. Would  I  honour  the  officers  by  joining  them  at 
dinner? 

Over  a  meal  of  soup,  bread,  rice,  and  raisins,  I  was 
asked  guardedly  about  my  views  on  the  duration  of  the 
war,  the  conditions  of  life  in  that  part  of  Palestine  oc- 
cupied by  the  British,  and,  above  all,  if  the  British 
would  advance  soon.  Every  one  seemed  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  British  could  advance  when  and  where 
they  Hked.  I  explained  that  the  Arabs,  Syrians,  and 
Jews  were  very  contented  and  on  good  terms  with  our 
troops;  that  bread,  fish,  and  meat  were  cheap  and  plenti- 
ful; that  local  inhabitants  were  well  paid  for  every- 
thing they  sold  to  the  British  armies;  that  the  popula- 
tion was  overjoyed  at  being  freed  from  the  Turks. 

Several  eyes  gleamed,  and  most  of  the  company 
looked  thoughtful;  but  no  comments  were  passed. 
Those  present  looked  at  each  other  with  side-glances, 
as  if  distrustful  and  afraid  to  speak. 

But  afterward,  when  we  went  outside  the  tent  to 


i8  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

drink  our  cofFee  by  moonlight,  the  commandant  took  me 
aside  and  unburdened  himself  while  pretending  to  watch 
the  Jewish  doctor  rebandage  my  face.  Was  it  true,  he 
asked  (the  Jew  acting  as  interpreter),  that  the  British 
intended  to  give  Arabia  and  part  of  Syria  to  the  Arabs? 

"Most  certainly,"  I  replied. 

Was  it  true  that  the  British  were  friendly  to  the 
Arabs,  and  gave  their  Arab  prisoners  all  sorts  of  privi- 
leges not  given  to  the  Turkish  prisoners? 

"Most  certainly.'* 

The  good-humoured  face  of  the  commandant  grew 
hard  as  he  began  talking  of  the  Turks'  misdeeds.  They 
had  massacred  many  of  the  Syrian  and  Arab  notables. 
They  had  starved  to  death  scores  of  thousands.  They 
had  commandeered  all  the  crops.  They  had  thrown 
many  hundreds  into  prison,  and  left  them  there  without 
trial.  The  whole  of  the  population  hated  the  Turks, 
and  were  only  waiting  for  a  British  victory  to  rise  up 
and  kill  the  grasping  officials.  When  the  British  ad- 
vanced they  would  receive  such  a  welcome  as  conquerors 
had  never  before  received  in  Syria. 

With  that  he  began  to  tell  me  how,  after  he  had  been 
taken  for  service  from  his  native  town  of  Homs,  the 
Turks  told  him  that  if  he  deserted  their  lives  would  be 
forfeit.  By  merely  talking  to  me  he  would  be  suspect. 
Would  I  be  kind  enough  to  give  him  my  word  of  honour 
not  to  try  to  escape  while  in  his  charge?  If,  however, 
I  were  sent  to  Damascus  and  thought  of  escaping  from 
there,  I  might  obtain  help  from  an  Arab  whose  address 
he  would  give  me. 

As  I  could  not  walk  five  yards,  and  still  felt  deadly 
sick,  I  gave  the  parole  readily  enough. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  19 

The  young  Armenian  helped  me  across  to  his  tent, 
and  put  me  to  bed.  He  then  wrapped  himself  in  a 
blanket  and  lay  on  the  floor,  facing  the  entrance;  for, 
he  said,  if  I  were  left  to  sleep  alone  the  men  would  creep 
into  the  tent,  to  steal  my  clothes  and  boots. 

At  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  after  a  few 
hours  of  fitful  sleep,  I  was  awakened  and  asked  to  dress. 
A  German  staff  officer,  said  the  Armenian,  had  ridden 
over  to  see  that  I  was  sent  away,  fearing  that  the  Arabs 
and  Armenians  might  help  me  to  escape. 

Outside,  in  the  moonlight,  I  found  a  young,  eye- 
glassed  lieutenant — correct,  aloof,  and  immaculate. 
In  atrocious  French  he  asked  if  I  were  badly  shaken, 
and  if  I  thought  I  could  ride  for  three  hours.  I  did 
not  think  I  could  ride  for  three  hours.  He  was  sorry, 
but  I  really  must  ride  for  three  hours.  Why,  then, 
had  he  troubled  to  ask  my  opinion  if  I  could  ride  for 
three  hours  ?  He  made  no  reply,  but  I  heard  him  giving 
instructions  to  the  Sanitatsunteroffizier,  who  had  come 
with  him,  to  have  me  put  on  a  mule  and  to  ride  behind, 
while  a  guide  led  the  way  to  Army  Group  Headquar- 
ters. 

A  shambling,  decrepit  mule  was  commandeered; 
and,  with  many  a  groan,  I  was  helped  on  to  its  back. 
The  Sanitatsunteroffizier  mounted  his  pony,  drew  his 
revolver,  and  cocked  it  with  an  ostentatious  click.  An 
Arab  guide  took  hold  of  my  mule's  reins.  I  said  good- 
bye to  the  Arab  and  Armenian  officers,  and  we  moved 
oflT  down  a  straggling  track.  The  commandant  had 
had  no  chance  to  give  me  the  address  of  his  friend  in 
Damascus. 

About  fifty  yards  ahead  I  saw  what  looked  like  a 


20  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Bedouin,  galloping  across  a  stretch  of  grass  and  disap- 
pearing behind  a  mound.  And  then,  from  the  camp 
behind  us,  came  a  startled  and  furious  shout:  '' Mein 
Pferd!  Teufel!  Wo  ist  mein  Pferd ?  "  The  Sanitats- 
unteroffizier  motioned  our  guide  to  turn  round,  and 
we  retraced  our  path.  The  young  staff  officer — no 
longer  correct,  aloof,  and  immaculate,  and  with  eye- 
glass danghng  unheeded  in  front  of  his  tunic — ^was  in  a 
loud-voiced  rage.  He  had  told  "one  of  these  brutes," 
said  he  to  the  Sanitatsunteroffizier,  to  hold  his  horse, 
and  he  now  found  that  both  the  horse  and  the  brute  had 
disappeared. 

I  remembered  the  Bedouin  whom  I  had  seen  riding 
across  the  patch  of  grass,  and  was  infinitely  amused. 
It  appeared  that  the  man  who  held  the  horse  had  al- 
ready deserted  twice  and  been  recaptured.  For  his 
third  attempt,  who  could  blame  him  for  taking  as  com- 
panion a  German  officer's  horse,  since  Allah  had  sent 
such  a  wonderful  gift  ? 

And  the  young  German  raged  and  cursed  and  shouted 
verbal  contempt  for  all  these  Asiatic  "cattle,"  among 
whom  it  was  his  misfortune  to  live.  Finally,  after 
promising  the  commandant  all  sorts  of  penalties,  he 
said  he  would  take  the  best  horse  from  the  Arab  offi- 
cers' stable. 

The  Sanitatsunteroffizier  and  I  again  walked  our 
mules  along  the  narrow  track.  It  was  a  ride  that  will 
live  always  vividly  in  my  memory.  The  guide  dragged 
my  mule  up  impossible  slopes,  pulled  it  over  slippery 
rocks  that  ended  in  an  almost  vertical  drop  of  several 
feet,  and  beat  it  unmercifully  on  the  several  occasions 
when  it  fell  forward  on  to  its  knees.     Each  small  jolt 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  21 

sent  an  exquisite  pain  through  my  contused  thigh,  and 
my  head  felt  as  if  it  were  being  beaten  by  hammers. 
Everything  seemed  unreal.  The  piles  of  heaped-up 
stones,  so  common  in  this  country  of  nomad  Arabs, 
looked  like  monstrous  gargoyles  in  the  half-light  of  the 
moon. 

After  about  an  hour  I  became  light-headed  again, 
forgot  I  was  a  prisoner,  forgot  I  was  on  muleback,  and 
almost  forgot  that  I  existed.  I  lost  consciousness  of 
everything  but  the  light  of  the  moon,  which  appeared 
as  a  great  white  hanging  sheet,  from  the  other  side  of 
which  sounded,  far  away  and  unnatural,  the  voice  of  the 
UnterofEzier,  like  the  trickling  of  hidden  water.  Fi- 
nally I  fainted,  and  must  have  fallen  from  the  mule,  for 
when  I  recovered  consciousness  my  head  and  arms  were 
sore,  and  the  German  was  arranging  my  bandages. 

Refreshed  by  a  short  drink  of  water,  I  was  once  more 
pushed  on  to  the  mule's  back,  and  continued  the  purga- 
torial journey  over  the  rocky  hillside.  It  was  four 
hours  after  we  had  started  when  the  UnterofEzier  an- 
nounced that  a  village  in  a  small  valley  some  quarter 
of  a  mile  ahead  was  Arsun,  the  site  of  Group  Head- 
quarters. 

I  was  taken  to  the  officers'  mess,  where  I  found  the 
eye-glassed  young  officer  relating  to  two  early  risers — a 
colonel  and  a  major — how  the  dirty  pig-dog  of  an  Arab 
had  stolen  his  best  horse.  The  colonel  received  me 
kindly  enough ;  but  a  major,  to  whom  I  took  an  instant 
dislike,  looked  at  my  torn  clothes  and  swollen  face  and 
laughed. 

The  colonel  gave  me  wine,  and  offered  his  sympathy. 
He  fought,  he  said,  side  by  side  with  the  British  in  the 


22  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Boxer  War,  and  he  had  the  greatest  regard  for  the  Eng- 
Hsh  infantryman.  Finding  that  I  had  fiown  in  the  bat- 
tle of  the  Somme,  he  launched  into  reminiscences  of 
that  epic  struggle,  and  told  me  how  desperately  hard 
put  were  the  Germans  not  to  let  their  retreat  degene- 
rate into  a  rout.  Now,  however  (this  was  the  period 
of  Hindenburg's  whirlwind  advance  toward  Amiens), 
things  were  better.  He  believed  that  Hindenburg, 
having  bled  the  French  white,  would  bring  about  a  Ger- 
man peace  by  the  coming  autumn.  I  remarked  that 
the  French  were  by  no  means  bled  white,  and,  moreover, 
that  there  were  plenty  of  Englishmen  and  Americans 
in  the  world.     Here  the  major  interposed  with  a  sneer — 

"American!  All  through  the  war  the  Allies  have 
clutched  at  straws  and  men  of  straw.  First  it  was  the 
Russians,  then  the  blockade,  then  the  British,  and  now 
that  all  these  three  have  failed  it  is  the  Americans!  I 
know  the  Americans  well.  They  are  all  talk,  bluff,  and 
self-interest.  They  will  make  not  the  least  difference 
to  German  invincibility." 

And  he  began  a  long,  boastful  account  of  how  he  had 
outwitted  the  Americans  and  the  English.  In  August, 
1914,  he  said,  he  was  on  special  duty  in  Japan.  He 
slipped  across  to  America,  and  for  a  time  worked  in  the 
United  States  with  Boy-Ed  and  Von  Papen.  After- 
ward, with  Dutch  papers,  he  shipped  to  Holland.  When 
the  boat  was  held  up  by  a  British  cruiser,  he  convinced 
the  stupid  examining  officer  that  he  was  a  Dutchman. 

The  major  proceeded  to  draw  offensive  comparisons 
between  the  Germans  and  the  English.  The  German 
nation  was  magnificently  organized,  whereas  the  Brit- 
ish leaders  could  scarcely  be  more  stupid.     But  it  was 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  23 

not  only  a  question  of  organization.  From  every  point 
of  view  the  German  was  superior  to  the  Englishman. 
He  was  braver,  more  intelligent,  more  obedient,  and 
had  a  higher  sense  of  honour.  When  it  was  a  question 
of  equal  conditions  the  German  invariably  beat  the 
Englishman.  He  turned  to  the  colonel,  and,  speaking 
in  German,  pointed  out  as  a  proof  of  his  contentions 
that  I  myself  had  been  shot  down  by  a  German.  Also 
speaking  in  German,  which  appeared  to  surprise  the 
major,  I  mentioned  that  I  had  been  fighting  with  not 
one  but  four  German  machines  after  a  German  pilot 
had  run  away  over  twenty  miles  of  his  own  territory, 
that  the  German  aviators  on  the  Palestine  front  in- 
variably fled  from  the  British  unless  in  greatly  superior 
force,  that  the  proportion  of  machines  shot  down  in 
Palestine  was  about  five  Germans  to  one  British,  and, 
moreover,  that  when  a  German  officer  had  the  misfor- 
tune to  be  captured  he  was  treated  as  a  gentleman,  and 
was  not  made  a  target  for  uncivil  taunts. 

The  major  rang  the  bell,  and  ordered  me  to  be  taken 
to  a  tent  by  the  cookhouse. 

Once  more  I  lay  down.  This  time  I  was  allowed  to 
sleep  until  awakened  by  the  myriads  of  flies  that 
swarmed  round  the  cookhouse  while  lunch  was  being 
prepared.  I  hung  about  the  tent,  miserably  and  de- 
jectedly, for  two  hours.  Then  a  lieutenant  arrived 
and  announced  that  the  major  would  be  graciously 
pleased  to  accept  an  apology  for  my  lack  of  respect. 

If,  I  repHed,  the  major  would  express  his  regrets  for 
having  spoken  off'ensively  of  the  English,  I  would  be 
delighted  to  exchange  apologies  with  him.  The  lieu- 
tenant and  I  treated  each  other  to  punctilious  salutes, 


24  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

and  he  withdrew;  and  that  was  the  last  I  heard  of  the 
ill-mannered  major. 

In  the  afternoon,  after  receiving  some  bread  and  cof- 
fee, I  was  sent  away  on  ponyback,  with  a  German  caval- 
ryman as  escort.  This  trooper  was  friendly  and  gar- 
rulous. He  pronounced  himself  a  Social  Democrat 
and  an  Internationalist.  He  was  a  good  German,  he 
claimed,  and  had  fought  for  Germany  since  1914;  but 
he  had  neither  hatred  nor  contempt  for  Germany's 
enemies.  It  was  the  Ministers,  the  politicians,  the  pro- 
fessors, the  journalists,  and  the  general  staffs  who  had 
manufactured  hatred.  The  German  civilians  and  non- 
combatant  troops  were  blinded  by  racial  feeling;  but, 
according  to  my  Social  Democrat  guard,  not  so  the 
fighting  man.  He  liked  and  respected  many  of  his 
officers,  especially  the  colonel  whom  I  had  met;  but 
after  the  war  the  proletariat  would  see  that  they,  and 
the  class  they  represented,  discarded  their  arrogance 
and  ascendancy.  And,  either  ignorant  or  unmindful 
of  Germany's  crimes,  this  half-baked  idealist  looked 
forward  with  confidence  to  a  wonderful  peace  that 
would  send  him  back  to  his  trade  of  printing,  and  would 
bring  about  an  immediate  heart-to-heart  reconciHation 
of  Germany  and  the  rest  of  the  world. 

With  such  debating-society  talk  I  was  distracted  from 
the  dull  ache  in  my  thigh  and  the  spasmodic  pains  that 
came  with  every  jolt  from  the  pony.  The  heat  was 
intense  on  my  uncovered  head,  and  the  flies  collected 
in  their  hundreds  each  time  we  halted  to  allow  a  party 
of  ragged  Arabs,  mounted  on  camels  or  donkeys,  to 
pass  round  some  bend  of  the  track  ahead  of  us. 

The  country  was  fairly  level,  however,  and  it  was 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  25 

not  long  before  we  reached  my  next  stage — a  field 
hospital  corresponding  approximately  to  the  British 
casualty  clearing  station.  There  my  face  and  thigh 
were  dressed,  and  for  the  first  time  since  capture  I 
could  indulge  in  the  glorious  luxury  of  a  wash.  The 
doctor  in  charge  complained  that  the  hospital  had  been 
machine  gunned  by  a  British  aeroplane,  but  he  seemed 
surprised  when  I  told  him  that  the  red  crescent 
painted  on  the  side  of  the  building  could  not  be  seen 
by  an  aviator.  He  agreed  to  mark  a  large  red  cres- 
cent on  the  ground. 

My  destination,  it  appeared,  was  the  Austrian  hos- 
pital at  Tul-Keran,  whither  I  was  forwarded  by  motor- 
ambulance,  with  several  wounded  Turks.  It  proved 
to  be  a  dirty,  insanitary  building,  such  as  the  British 
would  scarcely  have  used  as  a  billet;  but  at  all  events  it 
provided  a  much-needed  place  of  rest. 

Most  ex-prisoners  will  agree  that  the  interval  when 
they  were  first  left  alone  for  any  length  of  time  was  a 
first-class  substitute  for  purgatory.  All  at  once  the 
realization  of  being  cut  off  and  under  most  galling  re- 
straint becomes  vivid  and  intense.  The  thought  of 
irrevocable  separation  from  one's  fighting  companions, 
and  of  what  they  must  now  be  doing,  leaves  one  utterly 
miserable  and  dejected. 

Fifteen  miles  to  the  south  our  Nieuports  would  be 
waiting  for  the  next  tip-and-run  call  to  flight.  It 
would,  perhaps,  be  the  turn  of  Daddy  and  the  Babe, 
who  were  waiting  around  the  hangars,  while  the  rest 
trooped  across  to  tea  in  the  orange  grove.  Soon  all  of 
them  would  be  driving  along  the  wired-over,  sandy 
road  to  the  coast.     And  here  was  I,  herded  with  un- 


26  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

clean  Turks  in  a  crowded,  unclean  room,  while  the  hot 
sun  streamed  through  the  window  and  made  one  glad 
to  get  protection  from  it  by  hiding  under  an  unclean 
blanket. 

Only  fifteen  miles  to  the  south.  And  the  coast  was 
fifteen  miles  to  the  west.  The  coast?  Why,  a  friend 
of  mine,  after  he  was  forced  to  land  in  the  sea,  had 
effected  a  marvellous  escape  by  hiding  among  the  sand- 
dunes  during  the  daytime,  and  during  the  night  al- 
ternately swimming,  walking,  and  rolling  through  the 
shallow  water  on  the  fringe  of  the  sands,  until  he  had 
passed  the  Turkish  trench-line.  Only  fifteen  miles; 
and  from  aerial  observation  I  knew  that  the  country 
between  Tul-Keran  and  the  sea  was  more  or  less  flat. 

I  resolved  that  when  my  leg  allowed  me  to  walk,  I 
would  somehow  leave  the  hospital  early  one  night, 
try  to  reach  the  shore  before  dawn,  hide  during  the 
following  day,  and  then  run  or  swim  to  the  British  out- 
posts. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    FLIGHT   THAT   FAILED 

Tul-Keran  hospital  was  altogether  beastly.  After 
my  head  had  been  shaved  until  it  looked  like  a  door- 
knob, I  was  taken  to  a  sheetless,  dirty-blanketed  bed, 
in  an  overcrowded  ward  that  reeked  of  unwashed  flesh. 
The  beds  were  so  close  that  one  had  to  climb  into  them 
from  the  foot. 

On  my  right  was  a  Syrian  doctor  with  a  smashed 
leg;  and  on  my  left,  not  two  feet  away,  was  a  young 
Turkish  officer  with  aggravated  syphilis,  who  groaned 
and  complained  all  day  long.  When  not  in  pain  he 
read  pamphlets,  which  had  been  distributed  to  all  the 
patients,  explaining  just  how  England  had  shamefully 
attacked  the  peace-loving  Turks  and  Germans  without 
warning. 

The  two  windows  were  both  broken,  and  through 
them  the  scorching  sun  of  Samaria  poured  all  day  long. 
Tul-Keran,  being  in  low-lying  country,  is  infested 
throughout  the  hot  summer  by  legions  of  flies.  In 
the  hospital  they  settled  in  swarms  on  beds,  faces, 
food,  hands,  and  arms,  and  flew  at  random  from  one 
diseased  patient  to  another.  At  night  they  gave  place 
to  hordes  of  mosquitoes,  which  pounced  upon  and  bit 
every  particle  of  a  man's  body  left  exposed.  The 
sole  relief,  by  day  or  by  night,  was  to  hide  one's  head 

27 


28  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

under  the  filthy  blankets;  and  then  the  closeness  and 
the  reek  made  one  gasp  for  breath. 

But  worst  of  all  was  my  intense  agony  of  mind.  As  I 
lay  in  bed,  I  thought  of  my  squadron  going  through  its 
daily  round  a  few  miles  southwest  of  me;  of  my  last  air 
fight,  and  whether  I  might  not  have  avoided  capture 
by  adopting  different  tactics;  of  what  the  sinister  word 
"missing"  would  convey  to  various  people  in  England 
and  France;  of  whether  I  was  destined  to  spend  months 
or  years  in  captivity;  and  of  the  general  beastliness  of 
everything.  Above  all,  I  railed,  uselessly  and  illogi- 
cally,  against  Fate. 

The  Austrian  Staff  in  the  hospital  offered  whatever 
kindnesses  they  could,  and  treated  me  rather  better 
than  they  treated  the  Turks.  Each  morning  the  doctor 
brought  the  Vienna  Reichspost,  and,  after  a  passing 
glance  at  my  distorted  features  (I  was  known  as  "the 
Englishman  with  the  face")?  stayed  to  chat  for  several 
minutes.  He  was  charming  and  decorative,  with  his 
light  blue  uniform,  his  curled  moustache,  and  his  medals; 
but  I  never  once  saw  him  give  medical  attention  to 
patients  beyond  ordering  medicine  or  saying  invariably 
that  each  man  was  progressing  wonderfully  well. 

A  good-hearted  but  race-proud  Austrian  priest  often 
stopped  by  my  bedside  for  a  friendly  argument.  He 
performed  several  services  for  me,  such  as  changing 
Egyptian  notes  almost  at  their  full  value,  instead  of  at 
the  ruinous  rate  of  exchange  offered  by  Turkish  banks 
and  traders. 

He  was,  however,  a  rabid  hater  in  one  connection — 
he  could  find  no  words  bad  enough  for  the  Czechs  and 
other  subject-races  of  Austria-Hungary.     To  him  it 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  29 

seemed  a  crime  that  they  should  be  discontented  with 
the  suppression  of  racial  sentiments  and  institutions, 
and  should  agitate  for  self-expression. 

"They  must  either  be  loyal  to  us  or  cease  to  exist," 
he  said. 

Once  I  mentioned  inadvertently  that  I  had  met 
Masaryk  in  London  and  admired  him;  and  that  was 
the  end  of  my  friendly  relations  with  this  otherwise 
kind-hearted  padre,  who  afterward  was  polite  but  dis- 
tant. 

One  morning  there  came  a  German  officer,  very  tall, 
very  correct,  and  wearing  the  badge  of  an  observer  in 
the  German  Flying  Corps.  He  clicked  his  heels,  bowed 
from  the  waist  upward,  and  inquired:  "Hauptmann 
Bott?" 

I  admitted  to  the  name  and  rank,  whereupon  the 
visitor  introduced  himself  as  Oberleutnant  Wolff,  the 
man  whose  shots  had  punctured  my  petrol  tank  and 
brought  my  machine  down  in  the  mountains. 

Having  apologized  for  the  state  of  my  face,  he  offered 
to  drop  over  some  British  aerodrome  a  letter  announc- 
ing that  I  was  alive  and  would  like  some  clothes.  In 
accordance  with  the  polite  relations  between  British 
and  German  aviators  in  Palestine,  I  was  visited  by 
several  other  flying  officers,  each  of  whom — out  of 
pure  kindness  of  heart  as  I  thought — made  the  same 
suggestion. 

When  I  had  written  the  note,  and  addressed  it  to 
"British  Air  Force,  Palestine,"  I  was  told  that  it  could 
not  be  sent  unless  I  addressed  it  by  name  to  my  late 
squadron  commander,  giving  the  number  of  the 
squadron  and  the  situation  of  the  aerodrome — all  of 


30  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

which  would  have  been  highly  useful  information.  I 
refused  to  write  such  an  address,  and  said  I  would  do 
without  my  kit. 

The  stipulation  must  have  been  a  bluff,  however,  for 
Oberleutnant  Wolff  finally  took  the  original  letter, 
and  dropped  it  upon  the  British  aerodrome  at  Ramleh, 
which  was  well  known  to  them. 

Every  few  days  British  aeroplanes  flew  low  over 
Tul-Keran,  and  bombed  either  the  railway  station  or 
local  encampments.  When  this  happened  Turks  and 
Arabs  would  scurry  from  the  road  while  the  anti-air- 
craft guns  were  firing,  and  all  our  orderlies  would  dis- 
appear until  the  bombardment  had  ended.  Soon  after 
Oberleutnant  Wolff's  last  visit  an  aeroplane,  instead  of 
making  for  the  railway,  hovered  above  a  large  meadow 
used  as  a  landing  ground,  and  dropped  what  must  have 
looked  like  an  enormous  bomb.  It  whirled  down 
slowly,  by  reason  of  long  streamers  attached  to  the  head 
of  it.  It  did  not  explode,  and  the  aeroplane  left  with- 
out troubling  Tul-Keran  any  further. 

The  *'bomb"  was  a  sack  containing  kit  for  myself  and 
Major  Evans  (captured  three  weeks  earlier)  which  a 
British  pilot  had  risked  his  neck  to  bring.  A  German 
Unteroffizier  opened  it  before  me.  He  searched  nearly 
everything — boots,  underclothes,  and  trousers,  and  act- 
ually ripped  open  the  lining  of  a  tunic  in  a  hunt  for 
hidden  papers.  But  what  he  did  not  find,  and  I  did, 
was  a  tiny  slip  of  tissue,  sewn  into  the  corner  of  a  col- 
lar, with  this  message  scribbled  on  it:  "Dear  Bottle — 
so  glad  you're  alive.  Never  say  die.  Dine  with  me 
at  the  Savoy  when  we  meet  after  the  war.     The  Babe.'* 

Six  months  later  (before  the  end  of  the  war),  when  I 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  31 

had  escaped  from  Turkey,  I  did  dine  with  "The  Babe"; 
but  at  Floca's,  in  Salonika,  and  not  the  Savoy. 

The  kit  was  very  welcome,  for  I  had  been  flying  in  my 
shirt-sleeves  when  shot  down;  but  still  more  welcome 
was  the  knowledge  that  people  at  home  would  know 
that  I  lived.  With  this  worry  removed  I  now  had  a 
clearer  mind  for  preparing  an  escape.  Moreover,  my 
leg  was  feeling  stronger  every  day,  so  that  I  hoped  to 
make  the  attempt  soon. 

While  thinking  over  my  plan  one  morning  I  was  inter- 
rupted by  a  soft-spoken  sentence  in  French  from  the 
Syrian  doctor  with  the  smashed  leg: 

"Af.  le  Capitaine,  both  of  us  would  like  to  be  away 
from  these  Turks." 

At  the  time  I  did  not  know  to  what  a  state  of  revolt 
the  Syrians  had  been  brought  by  misery  and  oppres- 
sion; and  in  any  case  it  seemed  unwise  to  let  a  stranger 
know  that  I  hoped  to  escape. 

"Naturally,"  I  repHed,  "I  should  hke  to  be  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  Turks,  although  I  suppose  they  will  keep 
me  till  the  end  of  the  war.  For  me  it  is  damnable  here. 
But  you " 

"For  you  it  is  a  thousand  times  better  than  for  me," 
he  said,  with  intensity,  though  still  speaking  in  a  low 
voice.  "For  two  years  I  have  been  living  among  peo- 
ple who  are  half  savage  and  wholly  ignorant.  Because 
I  am  a  Christian,  they  try  to  treat  me  like  a  dog.  All 
the  time  I  was  with  my  infantry  regiment  I  never  knew 
when  one  of  those  Turkish  beasts  would  shoot  me. 
Nothing  would  be  done  to  a  Turkish  soldier  who  did 
shoot  me.  I  am  certain  I  have  remained  untouched 
only  because  doctors  are  scarce.  Several  other  doctors — 


32  EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

Syrians  and  Jews — ran  away  and  managed  to  reach 
the  British  lines;  but  I  had  no  chance." 

He  continued  to  tell  of  the  disgusting  conditions 
which  he  had  to  share  with  Turkish  soldiers,  who  lived 
more  like  animals  then  human  beings.  I  happened  to 
have  met  a  Syrian  doctor  who,  after  escaping  from  the 
Turkish  army,  was  practising  in  Alexandria;  at  which 
my  bed  neighbour  was  envious  and  interested.  His 
own  intention,  if  the  Turks  allowed  him  to  go  to  his 
home  at  Damascus  until  the  broken  leg  healed,  was  to 
slip  out  of  the  city  with  one  of  the  secret  caravans,  and 
trek  to  Akaba,  where  were  the  Hedjaz  Arabs,  allied 
to  the  British.  He  suggested  that  if  he  and  I  were 
sent  to  the  same  hospital  in  Damascus  we  might  make 
the  attempt  together. 

So  we  talked  on  in  the  heat  of  the  afternoon,  keeping 
silent  for  long  intervals  so  as  not  to  excite  suspicion. 
All  this  while  the  diseased  Turk  on  my  left,  who  could 
speak  nothing  but  Turkish  and  Arabic,  was  moaning 
and  tossing. 

That  evening,  after  thinking  matters  over,  I  decided 
that  my  sHght  chances  of  getting  back  to  the  British 
lines  by  swimming  down  the  coast  could  scarcely  be 
lessened,  and  might  be  improved,  if  I  asked  the  Syrian 
for  advice. 

He  was  very  sympathetic  and  quite  unsurprised,  but 
he  did  not  think  the  possibility  of  success  were  great, 
because  of  the  thousands  of  soldiers  in  the  district 
through  which  I  should  have  to  pass.  Nevertheless, 
if  my  leg  became  stronger  I  might  possibly  scrape 
through,  he  said.  As  for  him,  he  would  like  enormously 
to  come  with  me,  but  his  leg  made  him  helpless. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  33 

My  thigh  improved  very  rapidly,  and  I  began  to 
make  final  preparations.  Each  day  the  Syrian  and  I 
saved  pieces  of  bread,  so  that  I  might  have  a  store  to 
take  with  me.  The  supply  of  water  would  be  more 
difficult,  as  I  had  nothing  in  which  to  carry  it. 

A  Turkish  general  solved  the  problem  for  me.  One 
morning  the  orderlies  tidied  the  room  feverishly  until 
it  looked  almost  clean,  while  announcing  that  **The 
Pasha"  was  coming.  General  Djpuad  Pasha,  com- 
manding the  Turkish  Eighth  Army,  arrived  soon  after- 
ward, attended  by  a  mixed  collection  of  Turkish,  Ger- 
man, and  Austrian  officers — each  of  which  national 
groups  kept  itself  separate,  and  tried  to  look  as  if  it 
had  no  connection  with  the  others.  He  talked  amiably 
to  the  Turkish  patients — amid  a  chorus  of  "Yes,  Ex- 
cellency," and  "No,  Excellency" — and  more  than  amia- 
bly to  me.  Was  I  getting  better  and  would  I  like  some 
wine  sent  to  me  ?  The  answer  in  each  case  was  a  truth- 
ful "yes." 

To  the  doctor  with  the  smashed  leg  he  was  abrupt 
and  aloof  when  he  discovered  him  to  be  a  Syrian  Chris- 
tian; and  a  request  to  be  sent  home  until  convalescent 
was  curtly  refused. 

The  general  left,  with  his  ill-assorted  staff  elbowing 
each  other  in  the  doorway  for  precedence;  and  I  heard 
the  Syrian  swearing  softly  to  himself  for  many  minutes. 

From  Djouad  Pasha  came,  that  same  afternoon,  two 
bottles  of  Moselle  and  a  flask  of  eau-de-cologne,  ad- 
dressed to  "The  English  guest  of  Turkey." 

In  that  house  of  a  thousand  and  one  stenches  the 
eau-de-cologne  was  as  welcome  as  a  well  in  a  pathless 
desert.     The  Syrian  and  I  drank  the  wine,  leaving  a 


34  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

little  in  one  of  the  bottles  to  mix  with  the  water  I 
should  take  to  the  coast. 

The  only  remaining  preparation  was  as  regarded 
clothes.  I  decided  to  wear,  over  a  night-shirt,  one  of 
the  smock  dressing-gowns  provided  by  the  hospital. 
In  this  and  a  pair  of  slippers,  and  with  a  towel  arranged 
as  a  headdress,  I  should  not  look  so  very  different  from 
an  Arab  at  night-time  so  long  as  I  kept  moving. 

Came  the  day  when  I  walked  without  the  least  pain 
or  trouble;  and  although  I  still  could  scarcely  see  with 
the  left  eye,  I  determined  to  leave  without  delay,  as  I 
was  in  danger  of  being  moved  from  Tul-Keran. 

I  kept  awake  from  sunset  until  three  a.m.  hoping  that 
the  Austrian  night  orderly  would  follow  his  usual  cus- 
tom of  dozing;  whereupon  I  would  slip  by  him  into  the 
yard  and  thence  climb  a  drainpipe  to  the  wall  that 
rimmed  the  hospital  roof.  But  the  orderly  remained 
obstinately  alert  until  it  was  too  late  for  my  attempt; 
for  I  should  have  to  leave  early,  if  I  wanted  to  put  a  suf- 
ficient distance  between  myself  and  the  hospital  before 
choosing  a  hiding-place  in  which  to  pass  the  following 
day. 

Having  slept  through  the  afternoon  I  again  watched 
during  the  night;  and  again  the  Austrian  kept  awake. 
On  the  next  night  I  fell  asleep  at  two  a.m.,  disappointed 
and  almost  hopeless  when,  for  the  third  time,  the 
orderly  gave  me  no  chance. 

It  must  have  been  about  half  an  hour  later  when  I 
was  awakened  by  loud  reports  and  by  the  chatter  of 
the  Turks  near  me.  Guns  were  firing  all  around  the 
town,  one  of  them  from  a  field  fronting  the  hospital. 
I  knew  that  they  must  be  anti-aircraft  guns.     Either 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  35 

Tul-Keran  itself  was  being  raided,  or  machines  were 
passing  from  some  other  place. 

Inside  the  hospital  all  was  disorder.  Turkish  pa- 
tients talked  excitedly,  and  crowded  into  the  lower 
rooms.  In  the  ward  opposite  mine  a  man  who,  some 
hours  earlier,  had  undergone  an  operation,  called  loudly 
for  help.  The  orderly  himself,  almost  helpless  from 
fright,  ran  across  in  answer  to  the  cries. 

Now — while  everything  and  everybody  were  in  con- 
fusion— or  never  was  my  chance  to  escape  from  the 
hospital.  I  rolled  up  my  blanket  and  placed  it  under 
the  quilt  so  as  to  give  the  appearance  of  a  man  asleep, 
donned  my  dressing-gown,  shook  hands  silently  with 
the  Syrian,  and  went  out  into  the  yard. 

Somebody  passed  close  by  me,  and  entered  the  back 
door.  I  dodged,  and  locked  myself  in  the  lavatory 
until  he  was  in  the  house.  When  all  was  quiet  I  went 
into  the  open  yard,  gripped  my  parcel  (the  bottle  of 
water  and  the  store  of  dry  bread  tied  up  in  a  towel) 
between  my  teeth,  and  began  climbing  up  the  drain 
pipe. 

It  was  a  more  difficult  task  than  I  expected.  The 
wall  was  flat,  and  showed  few  cracks  that  could  be  used 
as  footholes.  I  scraped  the  skin  from  face,  arms,  and 
legs  as  I  struggled  upward,  a  few  feet  at  a  time.  At 
last  I  was  high  enough  to  touch  the  gutter  and  haul 
myself,  with  many  a  gasp,  on  to  the  roofs  edge.  While 
I  was  doing  this  the  first  disaster  happened — the  pack- 
age fell  from  my  mouth. 

I  kept  perfectly  still,  expecting  a  loud  noise;  but  the 
parcel  fell  with  nothing  worse  than  a  dull  thud,  the  bot- 
tle being  saved  from  breaking  by  the  bread  around  it. 


36  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Although  nobody  came  into  the  yard  I  did  not  go 
down  again,  for  every  minute  counted;  and,  moreover 
I  was  certain  that  I  should  not  have  the  strength  to 
climb  that  drain  pipe  a  second  time.  I  determined  to 
make  the  attempt  without  bread  and  water  and  the 
towel,  which  was  to  have  served  as  headdress. 

I  clambered  along  the  side  of  the  low  roof,  keeping 
in  the  shadow,  until  I  reached  the  front  of  the  building. 
All  was  clear  for  me;  the  guns  were  still  firing,  the  street 
was  deserted,  and  the  sentry,  who  should  have  been 
below,  had  gone  into  the  hospital  for  safety. 

I  caught  hold  of  the  right-hand  corner  of  the  gutter 
with  both  hands,  lowered  myself  until  my  body  was 
hanging  down  with  arms  fully  extended,  and  dropped. 

Then  came  the  second  disaster.  Although  the  root 
was  low,  and  the  length  of  my  body  deducted  five  and 
three-quarter  feet  from  the  total  drop,  yet  the  shock 
when  I  touched  earth  was  considerable.  I  landed  pur- 
posely on  my  left  foot,  since  the  left  leg  was  uninjured, 
but  I  toppled  over,  and  again  hurt  the  bruised  thigh, 
which  throbbed  with  pain. 

I  lay  in  the  shadow  of  the  wall  for  a  few  seconds. 
Then,  knowing  that  I  could  not  remain  undiscovered 
for  long  if  I  stayed  there,  I  looked  around  to  see  if  the 
streets  were  clear. 

Not  a  soul  was  about,  for  the  anti-aircraft  guns  were 
still  barking,  seemingly  at  nothing.  I  went  out  into 
the  vague  light  of  the  quarter-moon  and  began  walking 
in  the  direction  of  the  coast. 

A  hundred  yards  to  westward  I  was  past  the  strag- 
gling 'line  of  buildings,  and  on  the  open  road.  Then 
came  several  groups  of  tents  by  the  roadside.    After  I 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  37 

had  left  these  behind  I  cut  away  to  the  left,  across  open 
country. 

All  this  while  I  was  in  such  a  tense  and  exalted  state 
of  mind  that  I  did  not  sense  whether  the  night  air  was 
warm  or  cold,  nor  whether  the  ground  was  smooth  or 
rough.  Pain,  however,  was  a  sensation  that  could 
not  be  buried  by  abnormal  mental  tension.  My  thigh 
throbbed  relentlessly  and  maddeningly  as  I  stumbled 
on,  taking  my  direction  as  best  I  could  from  the  stars. 

By  now  the  guns  were  silent,  and  people  came  from 
their  hiding-places.  A  small  band  of  Bedouins  ap- 
proached out  of  the  dimness.  I  sank  to  the  ground 
until  they  had  ridden  by  and  were  on  the  road. 

Again  I  began  to  walk;  but  a  few  minutes  later  I  had 
to  halt  a  second  time.  Two  Turkish  soldiers,  their 
cloth  helmets  outlined  against  a  tree,  passed  some  dis- 
tance to  my  right,  whining  an  unmusical  chant. 

I  staggered  forward  for  about  another  hundred 
yards;  and  then,  weak  and  half-mad  with  the  per- 
sistent, ever-increasing  ache  in  my  thigh,  I  lay  down 
in  a  small  hollow. 

The  next  half  hour  was  perhaps  the  most  bitter 
period  through  which  I  have  lived.  I  should  never 
reach  the  coast  with  my  injured  leg,  I  realized.  Yet 
here  I  was,  wearing  but  a  night-shirt  and  a  dressing- 
gown,  and  helpless  in  Turkish  territory,  only  a  quarter 
of  an  hour's  walk  from  the  hospital  whence  I  had  tried 
to  escape.  I  could  go  no  farther — or  very  little  far- 
ther; and  if  I  remained  in  the  hollow  until  morning  I 
should  inevitably  be  caught.  And  if  I  were  caught. 
Heaven  only  knows  what  would  happen.  And  I  sud- 
denly realized  that  it  was  cold,  and  that  scores  of  mos- 


38  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

quitoes  were  biting  my  face,  arms,  and  legs.  And  the 
throb,  throb,  throbbing  in  the  right  leg  continued. 

Then  the  crescent  moon  disappeared,  and  the  dark 
gray  light  faded  into  a  blackness  that  covered  the  crops 
and  countryside  and,  above  all,  myself. 

I  felt  suicidal,  and  remained  inert  for  half  an  hour 
longer.  Finally,  I  decided  that  my  best  plan  was  to 
return  to  the  hospital  and  try  to  reenter  it  unob- 
served. 

I  staggered  back  through  the  darkness,  and,  more  by 
luck  than  judgment,  hit  the  road.  Slowly  and  very 
painfully  I  made  my  way  into  Tul-Keran.  I  passed 
the  tents  and  houses  without  taking  any  precaution 
against  being  stopped  and  questioned;  but  nobody  took 
the  least  notice,  possibly  because,  in  the  dark,  my 
dressing-gown  would  look  like  the  robe  of  an  Arab. 

I  came  within  sight  of  the  hospital,  and  found  the 
sentry  strolling  aimlessly  in  front  of  it,  from  the  main 
gate  to  the  side  entrance  around  the  corner.  When  he 
had  turned  the  corner  I  sHpped  up  the  pathway  to 
the  front  door,  which,  from  past  observation,  I  knew 
would  not  be  locked.  I  had  been  absent  for  two  hours, 
and  already  the  first  glimmer  of  an  eastern  dawn  had 
lassoed  the  countryside. 

I  unlatched  the  door,  entered  the  passage — and 
found  myself  face  to  face  with  the  Austrian  night  or- 
derly. Open-eyed  with  wonder  he  stared  at  my  dusty 
and  dirty  dressing-gown,  my  muddied  legs  and  slippers; 
then  grabbed  me  by  the  arm,  and  called  out:  ^'Der 
Englander!'' 


CHAPTER  III 

NAZARETH — AND    THE    CHRISTIAN    CHARITY    OF    A    JEW 

"The  Englishman!"  he  repeated,  gripping  my  arm 
harder  than  ever.  Then,  after  a  puzzled  pause : "  Where 
have  you  been?" 

"For  a  walk.  I  was  upset  by  the  air  raid.  My 
head  has  been  very  bad  since  the  smash,  and  sometimes 
I  don't  know  what  Vm  doing.  But  Vm  better  now, 
and  I  give  my  word  of  honour  that  I  will  stay  quietly 
in  bed.     Only  say  nothing  to  the  Turks." 

This  Austrian  had  always  seemed  a  good  fellow;  and 
now,  on  hearing  the  word  "Ehrenzvort'' — ^word  of  hon- 
our— he  dropped  his  attitude  of  anxiety  and  suspicion, 
and  became  his  usual  friendly  self.  A  wounded  Turk 
came  into  the  passage  to  see  what  was  happening,  but 
the  orderly  sent  him  away.  He  withdrew  with  a  look 
of  surprise  at  my  disordered  appearance. 

"Good,"  replied  the  Austrian.  "I  shall  say  nothing 
to  the  Turks.  But  when  the  corporal  comes  I  shall 
have  to  tell  him,  and  he  will  tell  the  Herr  Doktor,  But 
I  shall  ask  the  corporal  not  to  mention  it  to  the  others." 

He  led  me  back  to  the  ward,  and  there  noticed,  for 
the  first  time,  how  a  rolled-up  blanket  underneath  the 
discoloured  quilt  made  my  bed  seem  as  if  it  were  oc- 
cupied by  a  man. 

"Ndy  Ndy'*  he  said  as  he  straightened  the  blanket. 

39 


40  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

This  doesn't  look  as  if  you  only  went  for  a  walk.  Well, 
I  have  your  word  of  honour  that  you  will  keep  quiet, 
and  the  Herr  Doktor  must  decide  what  is  to  be  done.*' 

Tired  out,  and  so  despairing  as  to  care  nothing  of 
what  might  happen,  I  fell  asleep.  In  the  heat  of  mid- 
morning  I  was  awakened  by  the  corporal,  who  told  me 
to  come  with  him  to  the  doctor's  room.  As  I  limped 
painfully  along  the  corridor  I  was  still  tired  and  but 
half  awake,  so  that  while  I  remembered  an  unpleasant 
failure  I  could  not  define  exactly  what  had  happened. 

''Herr  Hauptmann,'*  said  the  corporal  with  a  grin, 
"your  injured  leg  was  not  improved  by  the  night 
walk" — and  only  then  did  I  remember  fully  the  bitter 
happenings  of  a  few  hours  earlier. 

Charming  and  decorative  as  ever,  the  blue-uniformed, 
much-medalled  doctor  rose  from  his  chair,  and  shook 
hands  with  exaggerated  ceremony.  The  priest  stood, 
silent  and  bowed  coldly,  as  if  to  imply  that  my  mis- 
deeds were  exactly  what  one  would  expect  from  a  friend 
of  Masaryk. 

"Night  walks,"  said  the  doctor,  "are  bad  for  people 
with  injured  legs  and  faces.  As  your  medical  adviser, 
I  should  advise  you  to  remain  in  bed  for  the  future." 

"I  hope  I  shall  be  permitted  to  follow  your  advice, 
Herr  Doktor," 

"That  being  so,  perhaps  you  will  tell  us  exactly 
where  you  went,  and  why  you  did  it." 

Well  knowing  that  with  so  many  indications  of  an 
attempted  escape  anything  but  frankness  would  be 
futile,  I  admitted  having  tried  to  return  to  the  British 
Army. 

"  So  !    And  now,  what  do  you  expect  ? " 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  41 

'^If  I  may  presume  on  your  kindness,  I  ask  that  I 
may  stay  here  until  sent  away  in  the  normal  course  of 
events.  I  hope  you  will  let  me  remain  in  hospital 
on  the  understanding  that  I  give  my  word  of  honour  to 
be  good  so  long  as  I  am  in  Tul-Keran." 

"That  will  be  difficult.  I  myself  have  no  objection, 
and  the  word  of  honour  is  guarantee  enough.  But  if 
the  news  of  your  escapade  got  beyond  the  hospital  I 
should  have  to  make  a  full  report." 

The  doctor  learned  from  the  corporal  that,  apart 
from  the  four  of  us  present,  the  one  person  who  knew 
the  story  was  the  night  orderly,  who  could  be  trusted 
to  keep  quiet.  After  a  low-voiced  discussion  with  the 
priest  he  gave  instructions  that  nobody  else  must  be 
told.  He  then  promised  not  to  make  a  report,  unless 
the  news  leaked  out  and  his  hand  were  forced  thereby. 
I  thanked  him  and  withdrew. 

But  the  story  did  leak  out.  Either  the  orderly  told 
it,  or  the  Turkish  patient  who  had  seen  me  in  the  pas- 
sage, after  my  return,  formed  his  own  conclusions  and 
communicated  them  to  other  people.  At  any  rate, 
several  Turks  came  into  the  ward  and  discussed  (ac- 
cording to  the  Syrian's  whispered  translations)  my 
adventure  of  the  early  morning.  One  man  even  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  I  had  gone  out  and  signalled  to  the 
British  aeroplanes. 

The  Syrian  was  greatly  concerned  about  whether 
anybody  knew  he  had  been  privy  to  the  attempt;  but 
I  was  able  to  reassure  him. 

Evidently  the  story  became  so  widely  known  that  the 
hospital  authorities  had  to  make  their  report.  Late 
in  the  afternoon  I  was  told  to  dress  and  collect  my  be- 


42  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

longings,  as  the  Turks  were  taking  me  from  the  hospital. 
Having  obeyed,  I  was  handed  over  to  an  escort  of  two 
Turkish  soldiers  with  drawn  bayonets. 

** Adieu,"  said  the  Syrian.  "I  shall  pray  for  you^ 
and  for  happier  times." 

The  doctor  shook  hands  ceremoniously  when  I  left; 
and  the  priest — affable  once  more — gave  me  a  heavy 
stick  to  help  support  my  thigh,  saying  that  he  hoped  we 
should  meet  as  friends  after  the  war. 

Bareheaded  in  the  searing  sun  (for  my  friends  had 
forgotten  to  include  a  hat  in  my  kit)  I  was  led  through 
a  gaping  crowd  to  the  railroad  station. 

There  my  guards  joined  forces  with  another  Turk 
who  had  in  his  charge  the  dirtiest  Arab  I  have  ever 
seen.  His  sole  dress  was  a  pair  of  tattered  trousers  and 
a  faded  overcoat  from  the  left  side  of  which  a  filthy 
arm  protruded,  naked.  His  headdress,  a  much-torn 
strip  of  dingy  rag,  seemed  to  have  lain  for  a  long  time 
in  some  stagnant  pool.  Clots  of  dirt  dotted  his  face, 
his  feet,  and  the  lower  part  of  his  legs,  which  were  bare. 
His  moustache  and  straggling  beard  were  powdered  with 
sand  and  gravel;  and  on  looking  closely  at  his  middle, 
where  the  trousers  tops  gave  place  to  uncovered  flesh, 
I  saw  two  lice  on  the  inner  surface  of  the  rough  cloth. 

The  Arab  and  I  looked  at  each  other  curiously,  after 
the  manner  of  fellow-prisoners  seeing  each  other  for 
the  first  time.  Then  an  interrogation,  interrupted  by 
our  arrival,  was  continued.  This  consisted  of  a  Turk- 
ish officer  shouting  menaces  at  the  Arab,  who  replied, 
whenever  he  was  given  a  chance,  with  cringing  explana- 
tions and  pleading  gestures. 

Presently  a  German  interpreter,  who  spoke  Arabic 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  43 

well,  joined  the  group.  He  also  threatened  the  Arab, 
and  I  saw  him  place  thumb  and  finger  on  his  wind-pipe, 
as  if  to  suggest  strangling. 

This  badgering  of  the  poor  brute  continued,  until 
finally  the  Arab  opened  his  hands  and  said  something  in 
a  resigned  tone;  whereat  a  thrill  of  excitement  passed 
through  the  gathering.  The  Turkish  officer,  before 
leaving  us,  wrote  several  lines  on  some  official  papers 
carried  by  the  Arab's  guard. 

The  Unteroffizier  then  turned  his  attention  to  me, 
and  finding  that  I  could  speak  German,  talked  of  many 
things,  from  Hindenburg's  advance  in  France  to  his 
own  home  in  the  former  German  colony  at  Jaffa. 

"You  have  a  pleasant  companion,"  he  said,  nodding 
toward  the  Arab. 

I  asked  who  the  pleasant  companion  might  be  and 
heard  in  reply  a  strange  tale.  The  Arab,  it  appeared, 
had  been  found  wandering  in  the  rear  of  the  Turkish 
trenches.  The  garment  he  wore  was  found  to  be  a  relic 
of  what  was  once  an  overcoat  of  Turkish  military  pat- 
tern; so  that  he  was  arrested  as  a  deserter,  and  pos- 
sibly a  spy.  He  told  a  rambling  tale  of  how  he  had 
been  a  soldier  in  an  Egyptian  battalion  fighting  for  the 
British,  but,  after  being  tortured  by  his  officers,  had 
escaped  across  the  lines. 

Even  the  Turks  could  not  be  convinced  that  British 
officers  tortured  their  men;  and  the  Arab  having  shown 
himself  to  be  a  liar,  they  were  more  than  ever  convinced 
that  he  was  also  a  spy. 

The  Turkish  officer,  in  the  conversation  I  overheard, 
had  threatened  to  hang  him  unless  he  confessed  to  be- 
ing a  spy.     Finally  the  Arab   (who,   in  my  opinion. 


44  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

was  not  a  spy,  whatever  he  might  be),  terror-stricken 
at  the  threat  that  he  could  only  save  himself  from  hang- 
ing by  a  "confession,"  let  himself  be  badgered  into  a 
declaration — ^true  or  false — that  he  was  a  spy.  So 
they  hanged  him,  as  I  learned  afterward,  at  Damas- 
cus. 

For  several  hours  we  remained  on  the  platform, 
where  the  Arab  and  I  were  rival  attractions  for  general 
curiosity.  Then,  late  in  the  evening,  we  were  hustled 
into  a  truck,  marked  in  German :  **  12  horses  or  40  men." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  more  than  fifty  Turkish  soldiers 
must  have  crowded  into  the  truck  before  the  train 
started. 

Our  party  kept  together  in  one  of  the  corners,  where 
we  found  just  room  enough  to  sit  down  without  being 
trampled  upon.  I  placed  the  kit  bag  between  myself 
and  the  Arab,  as  a  barrier  against  Hce;  although,  for 
that  matter,  most  of  the  Turkish  soldiers  were  ver- 
minous. 

That  night  I  performed  the  first  of  many  nightmare 
journeys  on  Turkish  railways.  Although  each  side  of 
the  truck  was  open  for  about  three  feet  the  atmosphere 
was  intensely  stuffy,  so  that  it  was  difficult  to  breathe 
when  seated  on  the  floor.  The  crowd  of  Turks  spat  all 
over  the  place,  and  exuded  dozens  of  different  smells. 
The  train  jolted  unevenly,  with  many  a  bump  and  halt, 
up  the  badly  kept  track.  Sleep  was  impossible;  and 
by  the  time  I  was  hauled  on  to  the  platform  at  Afuleh, 
nine  hours  later,  I  was  heavy-eyed  and  faint  with  wake- 
fulness, weakness,  and  disgust. 

Afuleh  is  but  a  few  miles  from  Nazareth  (then  the 
Turco-German  General  Headquarters  on  the  Palestine 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  45 

front);  and  to  Nazareth  we  trudged.  This  beautiful 
little  town  is  on  a  high  hill  around  which  the  road  to  it 
winds  upward  at  a  steep  angle.  With  its  white  build- 
ings and  its  pleasant  setting  Nazareth  offers  a  magni- 
ficent view  as  one  climbs  the  hill.  But  really  to  enjoy 
it  the  conditions  should  be  other  than,  when  weak  and 
ill  and  scarcely  able  to  walk  by  reason  of  a  bad  leg,  one 
must  climb  painfully  up  the  steep  slope  under  an  op- 
pressive sun  and  with  a  retinue  of  half-savage  guards 

The  Arab  and  I  were  led  through  the  old,  winding 
streets  to  the  Turkish  Platzkommandant's  office.  The 
Platzkommandant — a  swollen  balloon  of  a  man — 
asked  a  question,  and  the  Arab's  reply  drew  all  eyes  in 
my  direction.  Having  understood  only  a  few  words 
of  the  Arabic  I  wondered  how  I  could  be  concerned  in 
the  charge  of  spying. 

The  Platzkommandant  glared  at  me,  and  after  ex- 
amining my  papers,  spoke  with  somebody  on  the  tele- 
phone. Then,  although  not  a  word  had  been  spoken 
to  me,  we  were  both  led  outside  and  through  some  nar- 
row streets  to  a  stone  building.  Not  until  we  were  in- 
side it  did  I  hear,  from  a  police  officer  who  spoke  a  little 
French,  why  I  was  there. 

Having  noticed  that  rather  more  consideration  was 
given  to  me  than  to  him,  and  thinking  he  might  obtain 
better  treatment  by  hanging  on  to  my  coat-tails,  the 
Arab  had  elaborated  his  story  by  saying  that  I  brought 
him  from  the  British  Army  in  my  aeroplane.  Evi- 
dently the  Platzkommandant,  without  giving  me  the 
chance  to  deny  this  fantastic  tale,  had  telephoned  to 
Turkish  General  Headquarters  which  had  ordered  that 
the  spy  and  I,  as  accomplices  in  crime,  should  be  kept 


46  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

together.    And  here  we  were,  inside  what  I  learned 
was  the  civil  criminal  jail. 

I  protested  with  vehemence  and  ridicule  against  be- 
lief in  the  Arab's  absurd  statement.  I  pointed  out  that 
as  my  machine  was  a  single-seater,  his  story  must  be 
impossible.  The  police  officer  promised  to  forward 
these  protests  to  military  headquarters;  but  as  for  him, 
his  orders  were  that  the  Arab  and  I  were  to  remain  to- 
gether. In  any  case,  he  added,  I  was  probably  being 
punished  for  having  tried  to  escape. 

Remain  together  we  did,  in  a  superlatively  filthy  cell. 
I  would  rather  live  in  an  American  jail  than  in  most  of 
the  poorer  dwellings  of  the  Turkish  provinces,  where 
donkeys  and  dogs  and  hens  and  men  and  women  and 
children  herd  together  in  mud  huts.  As  for  most  Turk- 
ish jails,  I  would  rather  live  in  an  American  pigst}; 

Even  after  my  experience  on  the  train  from  Tul- 
Keran  I  was  surprised  by  the  first  sight  of  that  cell. 
The  walls  were  neither  stone  nor  wooden,  but  of  hard 
earth,  with  holes  and  cracks  all  over  the  surface.  The 
various  kinds  of  dirt  that  crusted  the  stone  floor,  which 
must  have  been  left  uncleaned  for  years,  had  mingled 
and  intermingled  until  they  became  a  thin  layer  of 
slime,  which  gave  forth  a  dank  odour.  The  room  was 
partly  underground,  although  the  small,  iron-barred 
window,  on  a  level  with  the  floor  of  the  yard  and  two 
feet  below  the  stone  ceiling,  let  in  a  certain  amount  of 
light.  Through  it  crawled  all  sorts  of  insects.  Hun- 
dreds of  vermin  were  to  be  seen  moving  in  and  out  of 
the  fissures  in  the  walls. 

Unadulterated  bravery,  without  any  trace  of  sup- 
pressed or  subconscious  fear,  does  not  exist;  wherefore, 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  47 

if  a  man  who  fought  in  the  war  tells  you  that  he  never 
felt  the  least  bit  afraid,  call  him  a  Har  of  the  goriest. 
But  my  experience  has  convinced  me  that  ordinary 
bravery — the  sort  of  bravery  which  is  self-control  in 
the  face  of  danger — is  one  of  the  most  ordinary  of  quali- 
ties, possessed  by  most  people  of  every  race,  sex,  and 
age.  But  endurance  is  another  matter.  To  all  but 
the  lion-hearted  there  comes  the  point  at  which  the  will 
to  endure  breaks  down  under  abnormal  strain. 

Being  far  from  lion-hearted,  this  now  happened  to  me. 
When  the  gendarme  banged  and  bolted  the  door  I  be- 
came morally  dead,  and  past  caring  about  surroundings 
or  events.  Physical  weakness,  mental  agony,  a  terrible 
dizziness  that  resulted  from  having  been  bareheaded 
in  the  Palestine  sun,  the  succession  of  privations  and 
revolting  surroundings — all  these  combined  to  break 
my  spirit. 

I  grabbed  the  shrinking  Arab,  who  evidently  had  not 
reckoned  on  being  left  alone  with  me,  and  flung  him 
across  the  cell.  I  then  sat  down  in  the  nearest  corner, 
and,  physically  and  mentally  sick,  remained  inert  for 
many  hours. 

The  next  three  days  I  remember  as  a  semi-conscious 
nightmare.  Yet  a  dreadful  nightmare  is  easier  to  bear 
than  a  dreadful  reality,  because  the  horror  of  it  is  con- 
fined to  subconsciousness,  and  does  not  touch  the  sur- 
face brain.  I  sat  through  hours  of  inertia,  without  com- 
prehension, energy,  or  a  sense  of  my  surroundings;  so 
that  I  cared  little  for  the  dirt,  the  stench,  and  the  general 
beastliness  of  the  cell,  because  I  scarcely  realized  them. 

Three  times  I  tried  to  pass  the  door,  so  as  to  protest 
to  the  police  officer;  but  each  time  I  was  pushed  back 


48  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

by  the  guard,  who  made  frequent  use  of  the  words  that 
every  prisoner  in  Turkey  knew  so  well — ''yok''  and 
''yassak''  ("not,"  and  "forbidden").  I  gave  up  the 
attempt,  and  relapsed  into  a  state  of  moral  lethargy. 

The  changes  from  night  to  day,  from  stuffy  heat  to 
damp  cold,  passed  unnoticed,  and  I  cared  not  whether 
I  lived  or  died.  I  felt  no  hunger  and  very  little  thirst. 
This  was  fortunate,  for  hunger  could  not  have  been 
satisfied. 

Each  morning  the  guards  gave  each  of  us  a  small 
loaf  of  bad  bread  in  which  pieces  of  straw,  string,  and 
wood  were  plentiful.  A  carafe  was  filled  with  bad 
water  once  a  day.  In  the  evening  a  basin  of  thin  soup, 
with  mysterious  chunks  floating  on  the  surface  of  it, 
was  placed  between  us.  Without  being  influenced  by 
Its  unsavouriness,  I  felt  not  the  least  desire  for  the 
greasy  Hquid,  the  small  loaf  of  bread  being  quite  enough 
food  for  the  day  in  my  then  state  of  unreal  detachment 
from  bodily  needs  and  sensations. 

As  for  the  Arab,  as  soon  as  the  basin  was  brought 
he  squatted  on  his  haunches,  dug  his  hands  into  the 
soup,  and  having  grabbed  some  floating  morsel,  stuflFed 
it  into  his  mouth.  Afterward  he  lapped  up  the  liquid 
itself,  after  the  manner  of  a  dog. 

On  the  morning  of  the  third  day  we  were  led  from  the 
jail  to  be  interrogated  at  Turkish  Headquarters.  Al- 
though my  ferocious  headache  still  remained,  the  change 
from  the  dimness  and  closeness  of  the  cell  to  the  bright 
sunlight  of  the  street  revived  me,  and  I  sniff'ed  the  fresh 
air  in  gulps. 

I  was  passing  through  Nazareth,  watched  with  evi- 
dent sympathy  by  the  sad-faced  crowd,  when  I  saw  an 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  49 

officer  of  the  German  Flying  Corps.  He  looked  at  my 
pilot's  badge  and  stopped,  whereupon  I  broke  away 
from  the  guards  and  approached  him.  In  violent 
language  I  protested  against  the  outrageous  treatment, 
and  asked  the  German  as  a  fellow-aviator  and  a  fellow- 
European,  to  see  that  the  Turks  moved  me  from  the 
criminal  jail. 

The  aviator  happened  to  be  a  friend  of  Oberleutnant 
WoWF,  who  fired  the  shot  that  brought  me  down  near 
Shechem;  and,  having  already  heard  the  details  of  my' 
capture,  he  recognized  at  once  the  absurdity  of  the! 
Arab's  story  that  I  had  brought  him  across  the  lines' 
to  spy  for  the  British.  He  himself  was  furious  at  my 
bad  treatment,  for  apart  from  their  air  combats  the  re- 
lations between  German  and  British  aviators  in  Pal- 
estine were  of  the  best.  He  promised  to  go  straight 
to  German  Air  Headquarters  and  enHst  its  influence 
for  me. 

I  left  the  German  and  was  led  by  the  guards  to  Turk- 
ish Headquarters.  For  two  hours  we  waited  in  a  cor- 
ridor; and  then,  before  I  had  been  interviewed,  there 
arrived  my  friend  the  German  pilot  with  two  staflF  offi- 
cers, a  monocled  major  and  a  lieutenant.  I  shook 
hands — and  was  oflFered  apologies  for  the  brutalities  I 
had  suffered.  It  would  all  be  right  now,  said  the  major, 
as  the  trio  disappeared  through  the  doorway  of  an  office. 

They  returned  with  a  Turkish  colonel,  who  likewise 
shook  hands  and  apologized.  Finally,  escorted  by  a 
different  guard,  I  was  sent  away  without  having  been 
questioned.  The  last  I  saw  of  the  Arab  was  as  he  stag- 
gered and  cringed  under  a  box  on  the  ear  delivered 
by  the  colonel. 


so  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Once  again  I  was  led  before  the  Turkish  Platzkom- 
mandant.  Evidently  his  knuckles  had  been  telephoni- 
cally  rapped  as  a  result  of  my  treatment,  for  he  scowled 
wickedly  as  he  took  my  papers  and  ordered  a  room  to 
be  prepared  for  me  in  the  barracks. 

At  first  this  room  seemed  a  paradise  after  the  slimy 
cell;  but  after  a  few  days  of  utter  loneliness  its  tiny 
dimensions — ten  feet  long  by  six  feet  wide — seemed  to 
be  closing  in  to  crush  me.  The  furniture  was  a  bed 
with  one  greasy  blanket  and  a  rickety  little  table  on 
which  stood  an  earthenware  jar. 

Next  morning  I  was  again  taken  to  Turkish  Head- 
quarters for  interrogation.  The  Intelligence  Ofiicer 
who  questioned  me  was  very  far  from  intelligent  in  his 
methods.  He  began  by  saying  outright  that  since  I 
had  been  moved  to  better  quarters  he  expected  me  to 
show  gratitude  by  giving  information.  I  replied  that 
instead  of  showing  gratitude,  I  ought  to  receive  com- 
pensation. He  hinted  that  it  was  in  his  power  to  move 
me  back  to  the  criminal  jail. 

"Do  as  you  Hke,"  I  replied.  "But  since  it  is  obvious 
that  you  are  highly  civilized,  you  will  do  nothing  of  the 
kind."  Whereupon  he  smiled  fatuously,  and  proceeded 
to  ask  leading  questions,  speaking  in  French. 

"Is  the  report  true  that  General  Allenby  has  left 
Palestine  for  France.?" 

"I  really  don't  know.     Possibly.     Possibly  not." 

"Have  you  seen  General  Allenby  lately.?" 

"No.  But  I  have  a  friend  who  once  saw  him  driving 
along  a  road  in  France.     But  that  was  two  years  ago." 

"Are  the  British  preparing  an  attack  near  the 
coast  ? " 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  51 

"Possibly.     Possibly  not.     I  really  don't  know." 

These  illuminating  replies  were  noted  down,  word 
for  word,  by  the  Intelligence  Officer.  His  desire  for 
details  about  myself  was  inexhaustible.  I  did  my  best 
to  satisfy  it  by  telling  him  that  I  was  aged  eighteen; 
had  been  an  aviator  for  five  years  and  a  soldier  for  six; 
had  come  from  England  on  a  ship  named  the  Hog- 
wash;  had  been  flying  the  type  of  aeroplane  known  as 
the  Jabberwock;  had  belonged  to  No.  i  Training  Squad- 
ron, the  best  fighting  squadron  in  Palestine;  and 
thought  the  war  would  continue  for  fifteen  and  a  half 
years  longer. 

Having  presented  the  Turk  with  this  medley  of  mis- 
information, and  watched  him  transfer  it  to  his  note- 
book, I  grew  tired  of  invention  and  protested  a  lack  of 
knowledge  in  reply  to  every  question. 

That  chat  and  backchat  with  the  wooden-headed 
Intelligence  Officer  was  my  only  conversation,  except 
a  few  whispered  words,  with  a  fellow-human  for  nearly 
a  week.  The  Platzkommandant  took  his  revenge  for 
my  complaints  in  two  ways — by  feeding  me  very  badly, 
and  by  inflicting  solitary  confinement  upon  me. 

Solitary  confinement  makes  a  man  utterly  wretched. 
Left  all  alone,  and  with  nothing  to  distract  his  mind, 
a  prisoner  can  only  think  and  think  and  think — and  all 
his  thoughts  are  morbid. 

I  had  six  matches  in  my  pocket  and  with  these  I 
invented  all  sorts  of  games  and  puzzles.  But  after  a 
few  hours  my  brain,  refusing  to  concentrate  on  them, 
drifted  back  to  the  sea  of  bitter  despair.  At  night-time 
the  great  difficulty  was  to  keep  my  mind,  not  from 
drifting,  but  from  racing. 


52  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

After  four  days  of  solitary  confinement  I  was  fast 
losing  all  sense  of  balance  and  normality.  At  times  I 
regretted  not  being  back  in  the  criminal  jail  with  the 
repulsive  Arab  for  company. 

The  few  words  I  managed  to  exchange  with  the  Chris- 
tian woman  who  tidied  my  room  each  morning  were 
an  unspeakable  joy.  This  woman — ragged,  bootless, 
and  gaunt — would  whisper  fierce  questions  in  broken 
French  as  she  threw  water  on  the  dusty  floor,  or  stab- 
bed with  a  hairpin  some  of  the  bed-bugs,  while  a  guard 
watched  through  the  open  door  to  see  that  we  did  not 
conspire. 

"Why  come  not  English?  We  hungry.  Pigs  of 
Turks!" 

And  I  had  to  whisper  back  that  the  English  would 
come  and  drive  the  pigs  of  Turks  out  of  Nazareth. 

When  she  had  taken  her  stooping  back  and  her  patch- 
work clothes  out  of  the  room,  I  would  probably  not 
have  the  chance  to  speak  with  anybody,  even  in  a  whis- 
per, for  the  next  twenty-four  hours. 

Apart  from  the  furniture  I  had  nothing  to  look  at 
but  a  green  hillside,  seen  through  the  tiny  window. 
For  hours  at  a  time  I  paced  the  few  feet  across  the  room 
and  back  again,  then  sat  on  the  bed  and  looked  through 
the  little  window  at  what  little  I  could  see  of  Nazareth. 

Several  times  I  noticed  men,  women,  and  boys  walk- 
ing in  a  huddled  group,  with  guards  around  them. 
Some  had  their  hands  shackled,  some  had  a  chain  link- 
ing one  arm  and  one  leg,  others  were  chained  by  the 
arm  to  the  next  person.  They  moved  aimlessly  over 
the  hillside,  presumably  for  exercise,  while  Turkish 
soldiers  pushed  or  beat  any  who  struggled  or  straggled. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  53 

On  my  sixth  morning  in  the  barracks  I  was  visited 
by  the  Platzkommandant's  aide-de-camp,  just  after 
such  a  party  had  disappeared  from  view.  I  asked  if 
these  shackled  and  browbeaten  prisoners  were  Chris- 
tians. 

"My  dear  sir,"  said  the  aide-de-camp,  with  all  the 
blandness  of  the  educated  Turk  when  telling  a  lie,  "we 
never  put  chains  on  anybody,  and  our  Christian  crim- 
inals are  as  well  treated  as  Mohammedan  criminals. 
You  must  be  mistaken  in  what  you  think  you  have  seen." 

After  this  conversation  I  never  again  saw  these  groups 
of  civilian  captives  at  Nazareth;  and  I  began  to  think 
that  the  strain  of  solitary  confinement  had  focussed 
my  sick  brain  on  sights  that  my  eyes  never  met.  Pos- 
sibly, however,  the  aide-de-camp  had  taken  care  that 
the  chained  prisoners  should  be  taken  for  exercise  on 
the  far  side  of  the  hill. 

Next  day  the  same  officer  paid  me  another  visit,  as 
he  was  learning  French  and  wanted  practice.  When 
he  was  in  my  room  I  noticed  from  the  window  a  strange 
procession.  A  few  banners  were  carried  at  the  head  of 
it,  then  came  some  Turkish  soldiers,  and  finally  a  mass 
of  men  and  women  shambling  along  with  bowed  heads. 
Somewhere  a  band  was  blowing  out  the  horrible  whining 
discord  that  the  Turks  call  music.  Nothing  more 
melancholy  and  unenthusiastic  than  the  people's  atti- 
tude could  be  imagined. 

"What's  that?"   I  asked. 

"Two  days  ago  the  Turks  gained  a  great  victory  over 
the  British  in  the  Jordan  valley,  between  Es-Salt  and 
Amman.  The  Governor  has  organized  this  procession 
to  celebrate  it.     The  population  is  showing  its  joy." 


54  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

I  looked  at  the  sad-faced  rabble  below,  and  remarked 
that  they  looked  more  like  mourners  at  a  funeral  than 
celebrators  of  joy.  The  aide-de-camp  had  spoken,  how- 
ever, without  the  least  suggestion  of  irony. 

Next  day  he  left  Nazareth  for  Tul-Keran.  He  paid 
me  a  farewell  visit,  and,  to  my  great  joy,  gave  me  "an 
EngHsh  book,"  which  he  had  bought  in  the  bazaar. 
The  ''English  book"  proved  to  be  a  copy  of  a  magazine 
for  children,  dated  1906.  It  was  even  more  consciously 
educative  in  its  exposition  of  elementary  principles, 
and  more  condescendingly  inept  in  its  milk-and-water 
stories,  than  the  general  run  of  such  publications.  Yet 
in  my  state  of  solitary  confinement  I  revelled  in  every 
word.  That  magazine  for  children  gave  me  as  much 
pleasure  as  have  the  finest  books  in  the  world  under 
normal  conditions. 

My  mind  stopped  racing  and  wandering  and  retro- 
specting  while  I  learned  all  about  wireless  telegraphy, 
in  twenty  lines;  how  Joshua  smote  the  Canaanites 
hip  and  thigh  (with  an  illustration  of  the  walls  of  Jericho 
falling  rhythmically  before  the  IsraeHte  trumpeters); 
How  to  make  lemonade  and  seed  cake;  How  not  to  make 
trouble  among  one's  schoolfellows;  The  birth  and  Hfe 
of  jelly-fish;  and  How  to  Set  a  Good  Example,  being 
an  instalment  of  the  History  of  Little  Peter,  the  Boy 
who  Feared  God,  Kept  His  Hands  Clean,  and  Was 
Always  Cheerful  and  Respectful  and  Fond  of  Chopping 
Wood  for  His  Mother. 

The  magazine  also  showed  how  to  make  hats,  sail- 
ing-boats, houses,  and  whatnots  out  of  a  plain  sheet  of 
paper — all  of  which  I  practised  assiduously  through  a 
night  of  bug-biting  sleeplessness. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  55 

Best  and  worst  of  all  was  the  five-page  summary,  in 
schoolmistress  English,  of  "The  Newcomes."  This 
had  nothing  in  it  but  colourless  statement  of  incident; 
and  the  sentiment  of  the  book  was  churned  into  a  welter 
of  flabbiness.  As  a  final  insult  '^adsum**  was  misspelt 
*'adsem,**  in  the  subjoined  monstrosity  with  which  the 
unliterary  procureur  completed  his  (or  more  probably 
her)   prostitution  of  Thackeray's  almost-masterpiece : 

When  the  roll  call  of  the  pensioners  was  made  the  dying 
Colonel,  hearing  his  name,  lifted  his  poor  old  head  and  said: 
^^adsem."  Then  he  fell  back  dead.  ^^Adserri'^  is  a  Latin  word 
signifying  that  a  person  is  present. 

Yet  the  protest  and  anger  inspired  by  this  outrage  were 
useful  in  taking  my  mind  from  its  lonely  bitterness;  and 
I  read  the  child's;  magazine  version  of  "The  Newcomes" 
many  times  over,  until  its  power  to  irritate  was  expended. 

After  a  few  more  days  my  confinement  became  less 
solitary.  The  German  major  whom  I  had  already  seen 
visited  me,  with  the  Turkish  Platzkommandant,  and 
asked  if  I  had  any  more  complaints  to  make.  I  looked 
at  the  Platzkommandant,  and  said  that  the  food  was 
not  only  bad,  but  scarcely  sufficient  to  keep  a  man 
alive.  The  fat  Turk  scowled  his  wickedest,  but  made 
no  comment.  The  German  major  expressed  regret, 
and  promised  that  meals  should  be  sent  from  the  Gen- 
eral Staff's  mess. 

Evidently  the  German  Staff  in  Palestine  made  a 
careful  study  of  its  own  comfort.  For  the  rest  of  my 
stay  in  Nazareth  I  fed  better  than  I  could  have  done, 
under  war-time  conditions,  in  any  London  hotel.  Meat, 
fish,   vegetables,   every   kind   of  fruit,   butter,   sugar. 


S6  EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

pastries,  good  coffee  and  wine,  all  were  sent  in  profu- 
sion— to  the  great  disgust  of  the  Turkish  oiSicers,  who 
were  fed  rather  worse  than  the  German  privates. 

This  diet  was  a  very  welcome  change  from  bad  bread 
and  water  varied  by  thin  soup.  Sickness  made  me  far 
from  hungry,  however,  so  that  I  found  it  impossible  to 
eat  many  of  the  meals.  The  corporal  of  the  guard,  the 
sentry  outside  my  door,  and  several  of  their  friends 
would  hang  around  in  the  corridor  until  the  tray  was 
taken  from  my  room,  then  stuff  their  hands  in  the  dishes 
and  snatch  at  pieces  of  meat  or  vegetable. 

For  me  the  food  from  the  German  mess  was  chiefly 
welcome  in  that  it  brought  me  a  good  friend — the 
dragoman  who  came  with  it.  He  was  a  Jew,  originally 
from  Salonika,  with  a  long,  tongue-twisting  name  im- 
possible to  remember,  so  that  I  called  him  Jean  WilH, 
French  being  our  conversational  medium.  He  was 
well-to-do,  had  been  an  official  of  the  Ottoman  Bank  in 
Constantinople,  and  spoke  seven  languages.  For  the 
first  two  years  of  war  he  kept  out  of  the  army  by  means 
of  baksheesh.  Finally  he  was  taken  for  service  because 
he  offended  an  influential  officer;  but  his  knowledge  of 
languages,  together  with  bribes  placed  in  the  right  quar- 
ters, procured  for  him  the  safe  appointment  of  a  drago- 
man to  the  German  Headquarters  at  Nazareth. 

Three  times  a  day — ^with  breakfast,  lunch,  and  din- 
ner— ^Jean  Willi  visited  me.  He  tried  to  come  oftener, 
but  the  Turks  would  not  admit  him. 

Everything  I  wanted  he  would  move  heaven  and 
earth  to  get.  He  "obtained"  a  German  soldier's  cap 
for  me,  on  discovering  that  I  had  no  hat.  He  per- 
suaded the  German  barber  to  bring  the  lunch  one  day, 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  57 

fio  that  he  might  cut  my  hair.  A  comb,  a  tooth-brush, 
soap,  books,  and  a  dozen  other  things  were  brought 
by  Jean  WilH;  and,  having  learned  that  my  ready 
cash  amounted  to  three  and  a  half  dollars,  he  pretended 
that  the  articles  were  sent  by  the  German  officers. 
Afterward  I  discovered  this  to  have  been  a  benevolent 
untruth. 

The  wayside  falHngs  of  a  roving  life  have  brought  me 
several  Very  Good  Samaritans,  but  none  other  who  did 
as  much  for  me,  under  great  difficulties,  as  Jean  Willi. 
Before  meeting  him  I  was  altogether  broken  in  spirit; 
and  with  hopelessness  filling  my  mind  I  had  actually 
begun  to  fear  for  my  reason.  He  understood  all  this 
and,  to  the  limit  of  his  powers,  did  his  best  to  remedy 
it,  well  knowing  that  such  action  would  bring  him  the 
enmity  and  suspicions  of  Turkish  officers.  His  friendly 
conversation  and  his  invariable  kindness  were  splendid 
tonics,  taken  three  times  a  day,  at  each  visit. 

When  he  was  away  my  mind  was  prevented  from 
slipping  back  into  the  stagnation  of  despair  by  the  books 
he  smuggled  into  my  room.  The  first  of  these  was  a 
German  war  novel — '' Der  Eiserne  Mann'' — procured 
from  a  Boche  soldier.  It  purported  to  show  how  loyal 
were  the  Alsatians  to  the  German  Fatherland.  It  was 
untrue,  stupidly  sentimental,  and  often  farcical;  but, 
after  all,  so  were  most  of  the  war  novels  pubHshed  in 
England  at  that  time. 

Then,  in  some  dark  recess  of  the  house  where  he  was 
billeted,  he  found  a  copy  of '' Les  liaisons  dangereuses'' — 
an  altogether  extraordinary  book  to  be  salvaged  from 
a  Httle  house  in  Nazareth.  This  was  my  first  introduc- 
tion to  Barbery  d*Aureville;    and  joy  and  interest  in 


58  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

his  magnificent  characterization  completed  the  rescue 
of  my  mind  from  the  slough  of  despondency. 

It  was  Jean  Willi  who  first  gave  me  an  outline  of 
Turkey's  spiritual  history  during  the  war.  The  sudden 
savage  onslaught  of  the  Turks  against  their  Christian 
subjects;  the  horrible  character  of  the  Armenian  massa- 
cres; the  murder  of  prominent  Syrians,  the  deportation 
of  Ottoman  Greeks;  the  gradual  starvation  of  the  rotten 
old  empire,  whereby  scores  of  thousands  died  of  hunger, 
while  the  Germans  were  sending  trainload  after  train- 
load  of  foodstuffs  from  the  country;  the  ruthless  execu- 
tion of  all  who  stood  in  the  way  of  Enver  and  Talaat; 
the  amazing  bribery  and  speculation;  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  deserters,  and  the  scores  of  thousands 
of  brigands — all  this  was  described  in  such  vivid  detail 
by  Jean  Willi  that  I  scarcely  beheved  he  could  be  re- 
lating  fact. 

Two-thirds  of  the  population,  he  said,  were  pro-En- 
tente— ^not  only  the  Christians  and  Arabs,  but  the  very 
Turks  themselves — although  none  dared  oppose  the 
violence  of  the  Young  Turk  party.  As  for  himself, 
although  he  had  never  been  to  England,  this  Jew  with- 
out a  country  claimed  to  have  a  frantic  love  of  the 
English  which  he  could  not  explain,  like  the  love  of  a 
man  for  a  mistress  whom  he  very  greatly  respects — 
his  own  words. 

One  day  there  arrived  four  Australian  aviators  who 
had  been  captured  in  the  Jordan  Valley.  R.,  the  pilot 
of  a  Bristol  Fighter,  had  landed  behind  the  Turkish 
lines  after  his  petrol  tank  was  hit.  H.  had  tried  very 
pluckily  to  pick  him  up.  H.  made  a  splendid  landing 
and — ^with  R.  and  R.'s  observer  seated  on  the  lower 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  59 

planes,  one  on  each  side  of  the  pilot's  cockpit,  attempted 
to  take  his  two-seater  into  the  air  with  a  load  of  four 
men.  He  might  well  have  succeeded  if  R.  had  not 
jerked  his  body  backward,  to  avoid  a  hot  blast  from 
the  exhaust  outlet;  with  the  result  that  the  equilibrium 
was  upset,  and  the  craft  swung  round  and  hit  a  pile  of 
stones.  The  four  officers  burned  their  machines  before 
they  were  captured. 

The  Australians  and  I  were  taken  for  interrogation 
to  German  Headquarters.  We  had  agreed  that  our 
best  plan  would  be  to  claim  complete  ignorance  of 
everything,  and  the  invariable  answer  of  C,  the  first 
to  enter  the  private  office  of  the  inteUigence  officer — 
one  Leutnant  Santel — ^was  "I  don't  know."  When 
H.,  the  second  on  the  list,  adopted  the  same  tactics, 
Santel  tried  bluff. 

''SoT'  he  said,  softly,  as  if  speaking  to  himself. 
**How  happy  am  I  that  it  is  I  and  not  another  who 
makes  the  interrogation.  Most  people  would  order 
bad  treatment  for  prisoners  who  refuse  a  correct  reply. 
Even  I  may  have  to  do  this.  If  the  Pasha  says  to  me: 
*What  have  you  learned  from  these  prisoners.?'  and  I 
reply:  'They  say  they  know  nothing,'  he  will  be  very 
angry  and  order  severe  measures." 

"f/A-Aw/t"— fromH. 

"Ah,  sorry,  I  forgot  you,  my  friend,"  said  Santel  with 
a  start.  .  .  .  **Your  aeroplanes  are  useful  in  com- 
municating with  the  Bedouins  east  of  the  Jordan,  are 
they  not?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"But  I  do  know." 

"Why  ask  me  then  ?" — the  reply  obvious. 


6o  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

"You  don't  know!  You  don't  know!  So!  Please 
leave  the  room." 

H.  returned  to  us;  and  none  of  the  remaining  was 
questioned  that  day. 

Leutnant  Santel  adopted  a  more  subtle  method  next 
morning.  With  Oberleutnant  von  Heimburg  ("bro- 
ther of  the  famous  submarine  commander,"  as  Santel 
introduced  him),  staflF  officer  of  the  German  Flying 
Corps  at  Palestine  Headquarters,  he  came  to  the  bar- 
racks and  invited  C,  R.,  and  me  to  Haifa  for  the  day, 
on  condition  that  we  gave  parole  until  the  return. 

We  accepted  and  agreed,  but  while  getting  ready  I 
remembered  how,  before  my  capture,  it  had  been  my 
duty  to  extract  information  from  a  German  pilot  while 
entertaining  him;  and  I  warned  the  others  not  to  be 
drawn  into  friendly  talk  about  aeroplanes  and  opera- 
tions. 

It  was  as  we  expected.  While  we  were  driving  to 
Afuleh  aerodrome  for  lunch  in  the  Flying  Corps  mess. 
Von  Heimburg  and  Santel  refrained  from  mention  of 
the  war,  but  at  table  they  performed  the  usual  trick 
of  showing  photographs  of  British  aerodromes  and 
pilots,  in  the  vain  hope  that  on  recognizing  them  we 
would  say  something  useful. 

Next  we  travelled  along  a  narrow-gauge  line  to  Haifa 
in  a  swaying  truck,  the  motive  power  of  which  was  a 
tractor  propellor,  driven  by  a  i6o  H.  P.  Mercedes  aero- 
engine. Once  again,  over  tea  at  the  Mount  Carmel 
Hotel  in  Haifa,  the  Germans  led  the  talk  to  Palestine 
operations  and  aeroplanes;  and  once  again  we  led  it 
back  to  shoes  and  ships  and  sealing-wax  and  cabbages 
and  kings. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  6i 

When  Santel  betrayed  a  desire  for  knowledge  of  the 
habits  and  exploits  of  Colonel  Lawrence  (who  was  per- 
forming such  magnificent  work  as  political  officer  with 
the  Arab  army  of  the  King  of  the  Hedjaz)  H.  said  he 
had  never  heard  of  him,  but  that  in  AustraHa  he  knew 
a  fellow  named  Lawrence,  who — who 

Santel  interrupted  and  did  not  try  to  conceal  his 
annoyance.  Then  he  began  talking  about  Miss  Ger- 
trude Bell,  an  Englishwoman  who  had  done  brilliant 
political  work  among  the  Mesopotamian  Arabs.  This 
time  we  were  able  to  say  with  truth  that  we  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  matter;  although  Santel  continued  to  discuss 
and  libel  the  lady,  whom  the  Germans  were  going  to 
shoot,  he  said. 

Von  Heimburg  then  praised  the  British  Air  Service, 
with  many  a  pause  that  invited  comment  from  us.  The 
pauses  remained  empty,  and  we  managed  to  exclude 
the  war  by  pretending  to  compare  painstakingly  and 
assiduously  the  respective  merits  of  English  and  Aus- 
tralian girls. 

After  tea,  while  bathing  in  the  Mediterranean  with 
the  Germans,  we  saw  a  strange  sight  along  the  sea- 
front.  A  Hne  of  not  less  than  thirty  fishing-craft  were 
left  stranded  on  the  beach,  with  great  holes  knocked 
in  their  sides,  so  that  they  might  not  be  floated.  This 
drastic  prevention  of  the  use  of  small  vessels,  according 
to  Santel,  was  because  many  Greek  and  Syrian  fisher- 
men had  spied  for  the  British  or  deserted  to  Cyprus. 

"The  same  thing  has  happened  over  there,"  he 
added,  pointing  across  the  bay  toward  Acre,  "and  at 
other  places,  too — ^Tyre,  Sidon,  Beyrout,  and  every 
port  on  the  coast-line  of  Asia  Minor." 


62  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

We  noticed,  however,  that  three  boats  were  out  at 
sea,  presumably  fishing  for  the  tables  of  officers  and 
officials. 

**If  we  could  get  back  here  some  night,"  whispered 
C.  as  we  dressed,  "we  might  collar  one  of  those  three 
boats,  tow  it  out  to  sea  by  swimming,  and  sail  to  Jaffa." 
This  revived  my  hopes  of  escape  for  the  first  time  since 
the  fiasco  at  Tul-Keran. 

"Thank  you  a  thousand  times,"  I  said  when  Von 
Heimburg  and  Santel  left  us  at  Nazareth.  "It  has 
been  a  most  enjoyable  day." 

They  agreed,  without  showing  enthusiasm. 

"But  not  a  very  successful  one  for  you,  Fm  afraid," 
I  added. 

They  were  quiet  for  a  minute,  and  then  both  laughed. 

*'So!  You  were  prepared,"  said  Santel.  "Well,  I 
shan't  try  again." 

Neither  Santel  nor  anybody  else  tried  again  to  inter- 
rogate us  at  Nazareth;  and  two  days  later  we  were  told 
to  prepare  for  a  journey  to  Damascus. 

C.  had  been  discussing  the  chances  of  escaping  by 
boat;  and  when  Jean  WiUi  paid  me  a  farewell  visit  I 
asked  him  if  a  journey  from  Damascus  to  the  coast 
would  be  difficult. 

"Very  difficult  indeed  under  the  conditions  of  which 
you  are  thinking."  Then,  after  a  pause,  "But  I  will 
tell  you  something  interesting,  since  you  win  probably 
be  kept  in  Damascus  for  about  a  fortnight.  The 
Armenians  run  secret  caravans  from  Damascus  to 
Akaba." 

"Thank  you.  That's  very  interesting,  indeed." 
And  it  was;  for  Akaba,  at  the  northeastern  extremity 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  63 

of  the  Red  Sea,  was  the  base  of  the  Arab  army  co- 
operating with  the  British. 

Jean  WilH  would  not  Hsten  to  thanks,  when  he  said 
good-bye.  I  gave  him  my  London  address,  in  the  sin- 
cere hope  of  being  able  to  pay  back  in  part  the  good 
deeds  I  owed  him. 

I  left  Nazareth  under  much  better  conditions  than 
I  entered  it.  Accompanied  by  an  Arab  pseudo-spy, 
I  had  arrived  half  crazed  by  weakness,  pain,  and  dis- 
aster, with  a  damaged  leg  and  a  swollen  face,  and  pos- 
sessing neither  hope  nor  a  hat.  I  was  leaving  it  in  the 
company  of  fellow-officers,  with  my  mind  and  leg  and 
face  normal  again,  and  having  not  only  a  German  hat 
but  renewed  hopes  of  escape,  summed  up  in  Jean 
Willi's  hint: 

"The  Armenians  run  secret  caravans  from  Damascus 
to  Akaba." 


CHAPTER  IV 

DAMASCUS — AND   THE    SECOND   FAILURE 

Nazareth  and  Damascus  are  wonderful  names;  and 
apart  from  historical  values  each,  with  the  country 
around  it,  stands  for  exceptional  beauty.  A  journey 
from  Nazareth  to  Damascus,  therefore,  "gives  of  the 
most  finest  pleasure'';  as  the  Greek  guard  of  a  Turkish 
train  assured  us  in  his  "most  finest"  English.  But  if  you 
wish  to  see  Syria  at  its  best,  travel  otherwise  than  as  a 
prisoner,  sitting  in  a  dirty  cattle-truck  and  surrounded 
by  Turkish  guards,  whose  natural  odour  gives  by  no 
means  of  the  most  finest  pleasure. 

Such  were  the  conditions  under  which  we — four 
Australian  officers  and  myself — came  to  Damascus. 
All  the  way  from  Nazareth  we  were  guarded  closely 
as  a  secret  meeting  of  the  Peace  Conference.  Only 
three  weeks  earlier  Major  Evans  had  escaped  from 
Afuleh  and  walked  forty  miles  before  he  was  recaptured ; 
so  that  in  our  case  more  than  ordinary  precautions 
were  taken. 

We  drove  down  the  steep  hill  from  Nazareth  in  three 
rickety  carts.  Each  of  the  first  two  contained  a  pair 
of  prisoners  and  a  pair  of  guards,  with  loaded  rifles  and 
fixed  bayonets;  but  H.,  whose  giant  height  and  strength 
the  Turks  respected,  had  a  cart  and  two  guards  all  to 
himself.     At  Afuleh  we  sat  until  nightfall  in  a  mud 

64 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  65 

hut,  with  the  local  population  gazing  and  chattering 
through  the  open  door,  as  if  we  had  been  strange 
animals. 

We  welcomed  the  change  to  a  covered  cattle-truck 
on  the  railway,  away  from  prying  Turks  and  Arabs. 
In  this  truck,  with  coats  serving  as  pillows,  we  lay  on 
the  filthy  floor  throughout  the  night,  while  the  train 
jolted  eastward  over  the  badly  kept  track.  Whenever 
I  looked  at  the  half-open  shutter  I  met  the  alert  eyes  of 
a  guard,  whose  business  it  was  to  prevent  us  from  jump- 
ing into  the  darkness. 

The  next  day  we  passed  in  playing  poker,  in  looking 
at  the  wild  hills  of  Samaria,  and,  by  jugghng  with  the 
few  French  words  he  could  understand,  in  trying  to  tell 
the  Arab  officer  in  charge  of  us  how  contented  were  the 
Arab  population  in  those  parts  of  Palestine,  Arabia,  and 
Mesopotamia  occupied  by  the  British. 

This  man,  like  most  of  the  Syrian  Arabs,  showed  him- 
self well-disposed  to  prisoners.  He  presented  us  with 
bread  and  hard-boiled  eggs,  bought  with  his  own  money, 
and  refused  to  take  payment.  As  always,  no  food  had 
been  provided  by  the  military  authorities. 

So  we  jogged  on,  with  many  a  halt,  across  the  Jordan 
and  round  and  up  the  winding  tracks  in  the  hill  country 
beyond  it.  We  stopped  for  an  hour  at  Deraa,  \yhere  a 
Turkish  doctor  with  pleasant  manners  and  a  dirty 
hypodermic  needle  visited  the  truck.  Having  assured 
us  that  cholera  was  very  prevalent  in  the  British  army, 
he  proceeded  to  inoculate  us,  so  that  we  might  have  no 
chance  of  taking  the  disease  to  Damascus.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  British  army  in  Palestine  was  entirely 
free  from  cholera,  while  Damascus,  as  we  afterward 


(£  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

learned,  was  full  of  it.  Fortunately,  nothing  worse 
than  sore  chests  resulted  from  the  use  of  his  rusty, 
unsterilized  needle. 

Then,  just  before  sunset,  we  rounded  a  bend  at  the 
bottom  of  a  hill  and  came  upon  Damascus;  and  forget- 
ful of  captivity  and  cattle-trucks  and  guards  and  their 
attendant  smells,  I  held  my  breath  for  the  beauty  of  it. 
Away  to  the  north  stretched  a  belt  of  grainland  vivid 
in  browns  and  greens.  Beyond  was  a  wooded  area 
reaching  to  the  lower  slopes  of  the  mountain  range  that 
extends  from  Lebanon  to  Damascus.  Down  the  lower 
slopes  of  one  of  the  most  easterly  mountains  flow  the 
sources  of  Pharpar  and  Abana,  the  twin  rivers.  The 
streams  twist  downward  until  they  lose  themselves  in 
a  detached  part  of  the  old  town,  perched  several  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  rest  of  the  city. 

Farther  below  is  Damascus  itself — a  maze  of  flat 
buildings,  squat  mosques,  and  minaret  spires,  all  in 
gray-white,  as  if  sprinkled  with  the  powder  of  time, 
and  now  smudged  with  faint  rose  by  the  sinking  sun- 
light. Eastward  and  southeastward  stretches  the  great 
desert  that  leads  to  the  sites  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  to 
Bagdad,  to  Persia,  to  the  beginnings  of  human  history. 

In  Damascus,  as  I  knew  from  intelligence  oflficers 
of  the  Palestine  army,  were  many  friends  of  the  British. 
Nearly  all  the  population,  in  fact,  were  secretly  anti- 
Turk  and  anti-German.  Could  we  make  use  of  these 
sentiments  in  planning  an  escape?  What  experiences 
and  adventures  awaited  us  in  this  oldest  standing  city 
of  the  world,  that  was  famous  in  the  days  of  Abraham, 
very  famous  in  the  days  of  Haroun-al-Raschid,  and 
still  famous  in  the  days  of  Woodrow  Wilson? 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  67 

The  first  few  of  these  experiences  were  by  no  means 
pleasant.  Surrounded  by  the  gleaming  bayonets  and 
eyes  of  the  guards,  who  were  clearly  anxious  lest  we 
should  disappear  in  the  fading  Hght,  we  were  hustled 
from  the  railway  to  the  police  station,  and  locked  in 
a  tiny  room  for  four  hours. 

Finally,  just  before  midnight,  the  police  led  us  to 
Baranki  Barracks,  a  large  building  used  as  a  prison  for 
military  criminals.  Tired,  hungry,  and  disconsolate, 
we  fell  asleep  on  the  bare  bedsteads  of  the  room  as- 
signed to  us. 

But  not  for  long.  It  must  have  been  about  two 
hours  later  when  I  awoke,  tingling  all  over  and  vaguely 
uncomfortable.  To  my  surprise  I  saw  that  C.  was 
standing  by  his  bed,  and,  by  the  light  of  my  candle, 
was  stabbing  at  it.  M.  sat  up  suddenly,  scratched  him- 
self, and  swore  softly  in  a  series  of  magnificent  Austra- 
han  oaths.     R.,  who  had  not  undressed,  still  slumbered. 

Ouch!  More  sharp  stingings  came  from  my  legs  and 
arms.     Bugs,  and  swarms  of  them! 

In  the  prison  at  Nazareth  I  had  lived  with  scores  of 
the  little  red  brutes  so  common  in  the  Near  East;  but 
here  there  were  hundreds.  They  were  crawling  down 
the  wall,  falling  on  the  floor,  and  biting  every  bit  of 
flesh  left  exposed.  I  lit  a  candle  and  found  dozens 
on  my  bed. 

Lying  on  the  floor  having  proved  to  be  as  impossible 
as  lying  on  the  bed,  I  went  to  the  window  and  looked 
into  the  night,  thinking  of  the  one  matter  that  inter- 
ested me  in  those  days — escape.  Across  the  road  was 
a  large  camp  bordered  on  the  left  by  a  meadow  and  on 
the  right  by  one  of  the  seven  streams  of  Damascus. 


68  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Straight  ahead,  weirdly  colossal  in  the  moonlight,  were 
two  great  mountains.  Beyond  them,  I  knew,  the  great 
desert  stretched  through  hundreds  of  miles  to  Mesopo- 
tamia. I  was  aware  just  how  far  the  British  Mesopo- 
tamian  army  had  arrived  on  the  way  from  Bagdad  to 
Mosul;  but  even  if  we  were  lucky  enough  to  find  a  guide 
who  could  smuggle  us  into  an  eastward-moving  caravan 
it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  make  a  detour  around 
the  Turkish  army;  and  in  any  case  we  should  be  de- 
pendent on  the  help  of  Kurds  or  Mesopotamian  Arabs, 
who  are  much  less  estimable  than  the  Arabs  of  Syria 
and  Arabia.     No,  that  plan  was  not  feasible. 

I  considered  the  suggestion  of  C. — that  we  should 
make  our  way  to  the  coast,  hiding  in  the  daytime  and 
walking  only  at  nights,  and  then,  arrived  at  Acre  or 
Tyre,  or  some  such  seaport,  commandeer  a  sailing- 
boat  and  make  for  Cyprus  or  Jaffa.  For  this  plan, 
also,  the  difficulties  would  be  many  and  serious.  Such 
few  boats  as  were  still  serviceable  would  be  well  guarded. 
Even  if  we  managed  to  steal  one  of  them,  it  would  have 
to  be  towed  into  deep  water  by  swimmers,  which  was 
scarcely  practicable  in  the  darkness.  In  any  case,  a 
walk  to  the  coast  from  Damascus  must  cover  many 
nights.  A  guide  would  be  essential,  as  otherwise  we 
could  buy  no  bread  on  the  journey,  since  none  of  us 
spoke  Arabic.  And  a  guide  would  cost  a  deal  of  money, 
of  which  we  had  little. 

'  My  scheme  of  getting  into  touch  with  the  secret 
caravans,  by  means  of  which  Arabs  and  Armenians 
were  slipping  southward  from  Damascus  to  Akaba,  still 
seemed  the  best.  But  here,  again,  money  would  be 
needed,  besides  a  reliable  intermediary.     Money  we 


EASTERN  NIGHTS-AND  FLIGHTS  69 

might  obtain  by  smuggling  a  letter  to  the  Spanish  con- 
sul, who  had  taken  charge  of  British  interests  in  Damas- 
cus. As  for  an  intermediary,  we  should  have  to  trust 
the  gods  to  give  us  one  from  among  the  guards. 

Whatever  we  did  would  have  to  be  done  quickly, 
for  we  should  not  be  long  in  Damascus.  By  the  time 
I  had  reached  this  conclusion  I  was  tired  enough  to 
fall  asleep  despite  the  bugs. 

The  morning  toilet  included  a  ceremony  that  every 
prisoner  in  Turkey  found  it  necessary  to  perform  after 
travelling  on  the  railway — a  careful  hunt  for  lice  in  our 
clothes.  The  search  was  productive,  and  led  to  talk  of 
the  plague  of  typhus  which  was  being  spread  all  over 
Turkey  by  these  vermin. 

For  the  rest  of  the  morning  nothing  happened,  except 
a  short  visit  from  the  commandant.  By  now,  having 
eaten  nothing  for  twenty-four  hours,  we  were  irritable 
with  hunger.  I  made  known  this  fact  to  the  com- 
mandant, who  promised  that  we  should  feed  at  midday. 

With  him  came  a  little  interpreter,  with  bent  shoul- 
ders, a  greasy  face,  and  an  absurdly  long  nose.  Here, 
I  thought,  is  a  possible  intermediary;  and  I  asked  him  to 
return  later.  During  the  afternoon  he  entered  softly 
and  announced: 

"I  am  George,  interpreter  of  English.  I  am  friend  of 
EngHsh,  honest  to  God." 

George  was  a  native  of  Beyrout,  part  Syrian,  part 
Greek,  part  Jew,  and  wholly  scoundrel.  Were  I  writing 
fiction  I  should  call  him  a  Syro-Phoenician,  which  is  an 
impressive  term  but  means  nothing;  but  as  George 
really  happened,  I  can  only  describe  him  as  a  Levantine 
mongrel. 


70  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Some  time  or  other  in  his  chequered  life  he  spent 
three  months  in  America,  where  he  learned  to  say 
"Honest  to  God"  quite  well,  and  to  speak  a  queer  jar- 
gon of  Anglo-American  quite  badly.  By  reason  of  this 
accomplishment  he  became  interpreter  of  English  at 
Baranki  Barracks. 

However,  since  he  spoke  French  much  better  than 
he  tried  to  speak  English,  conversation  with  him  was 
possible.  He  had  the  Levantine  habit  of  using  "mon 
cher''  in  every  alternate  sentence  when  speaking  French; 
and  this  he  appHed  to  his  English  by  saying  "my  dear" 
on  the  least  provocation. 

M.,  who  could  not  speak  French,  asked  him  to  smug- 
gle a  letter  to  the  Spanish  consul. 

"My  dear,"  he  replied,  "I  take  it  with  lots  of  hap- 
piness.    My  officer  shall  not  know  the  letter,  I  guess." 

The  Spanish  consul  repHed  by  return,  and  next  day 
we  were  each  presented  with  twenty  Turkish  pounds — 
about  sixty  dollars  at  the  then  rate  of  exchange.  This 
rather  annoyed  the  Turkish  commandant,  who  had 
himself  given  us  seven  Turkish  pounds  each,  being  our 
first  month's  pay  as  captive  officers. 

With  four  hundred  dollars  between  us  we  were  now 
in  a  much  better  position  to  prepare  a  scheme  of  escape. 
I  decided  to  plumb  the  depths  of  George's  "I  am  a 
friend  of  English,  honest  to  God."  We  should  have 
to  take  him  with  us,  if  possible,  for  if  we  left  him  be- 
hind he  would  be  suspected  and  the  Turks  might 
frighten  him  into  betraying  us. 

An  opportunity  came  that  same  evening.  George 
had  been  telling  of  the  starvation  in  Damascus,  of  the 
deaths  from  destitution  all  over  Syria,  of  the  hangings 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  71 

without  trial,  of  the  general  discontent,  of  the  terrible 
conditions  of  his  own  imprisonment  for  sixty  days, 
because  he  had  been  suspected  of  spying  for  the  King 
of  the  Hedjaz. 

"Wouldn't  you  hke,"  said  M.,  "to  be  away  from  this 
nightmare  of  a  Hfe  and  in  a  peaceful  country  Uke 
Egypt?" 

"I  guess  yes,  my  dear,"  said  George.  "But  I  desire 
to  quit  the  East  and  live  among  English." 

"Well,"  said  C,  "I  could  find  you  a  comfortable  job 
in  AustraHa." 

"Very  obliged.  I  take  your  address  and  write  when 
war  shall  finish." 

"That's  no  good.  None  of  us  may  be  aUve  when  the 
war  is  over.     How  would  you  like  to  take  the  job  now  ? " 

"What  can  you  desire  to  say,  my  dear.?" 

There  was  an  awkward  pause.  We  were  shy  of 
carrying  the  matter  further;  for  chance-met  Levan- 
tines, like  politicians,  do  not  as  a  rule  inspire  confidence. 

Yet  it  had  to  be  done.  I  continued  the  conversation 
in  French,  George's  weird  English  not  being  a  good 
medium  for  the  discussion  of  secrets. 

"If,"  I  promised,  "you  help  us  to  escape  and  come 
with  us,  we  will  give  you  not  only  money,  but  a  job  for 
life  in  AustraUa." 

George's  face  whitened  suddenly,  and  for  the  rest  of 
that  evening  his  hands  shook  with  excitement. 

"There  is  nothing  I  wish  so  much,  mon  cher,^*  he 
said,  "as  to  escape  to  the  British.  But  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult and  would  need  much  money.  Also  I  have  so 
little  courage." 

George  went  into  the  corridor  to  see  if  the  guard 


72  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

showed  suspicions.  But  the  sentry — a  black  Suda- 
nese— ^was  sitting  on  the  floor,  gazing  at  and  thinking 
of  nothing,  after  his  usual  stupid  fashion. 

George  returned,  and  for  half  an  hour  we  discussed 
and  rediscussed  possibilities.  He  pronounced  the 
scheme  of  walking  to  the  coast  in  a  series  of  night 
marches,  and  then  stealing  a  boat,  to  be  impossible. 
The  idea  of  joining  a  caravan  to  Akaba  he  judged  more 
hopeful,  but  that  would  mean  hiding  in  Damascus 
until  the  next  party  was  ready  to  start.  Hiding  in 
Damascus  would  be  not  only  highly  dangerous  but 
highly  expensive.  Anyhow,  the  Armenians  who  or- 
ganized the  secret  caravans  must  be  shy  of  adding  im- 
mensely to  their  risks  by  taking  British  officers,  and 
if  they  did  take  such  risks  they  would  expect  to  receive 
more  ready  money  than  we  possessed. 

George  was  silent  for  several  moments,  and  then 
announced  that  he  would  try  to  find  an  Arab,  from 
among  his  acquaintances,  who  would  lead  us  to  Deraa, 
and  thence  through  the  mountains  to  the  Dead  Sea 
regions.  For  this  also,  he  pointed  out,  money  would 
be  necessary — and  gold,  not  paper.  We  could  change 
our  paper  notes  only  at  the  rate  of  four  and  a  half  paper 
pounds  for  one  in  gold;  and  the  sum  obtained  by  this 
means  would  be  too  little. 

"But,"  I  pointed  out,  '*if  we  go  below  the  Dead 
Sea  to  the  country  occupied  by  the  Hedjaz  army,  we 
can  get  gold  enough.  Haven't  you  heard  of  the  gold 
at  *X*,  of  a  certain  Arab  emir  and  of  certain  British 
officers?" 

''Mon  chery  I  have  heard  a  lot  of  this  gold,  and  so 
have  many  of  the  Bedouins  around  here.     But  perhaps 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  73 

I  shall  not  be  able  to  convince  my  friend  that  you  could 
obtain  money  from  it." 

I  gave  George  arguments  enough  to  convince  his 
friend,  and  made  him  swear  by  his  professed  Chris- 
tianity that  he  would  keep  secret  our  conversation. 
Soon  afterward  he  left  us,  still  trembling  with  excite- 
ment. 

Full  of  renewed  hope,  I  looked  out  of  the  window  into 
the  Eastern  evening,  and  speculated  on  what  the  god 
of  chance  might  do  for  us.  To  be  effective  he  would 
have  to  do  a  lot.  There  was,  for  example,  the  Austrian 
sentry  whom  I  could  see  below,  leaning  against  a  motor 
lorry.  If  he  were  about,  on  whatever  night  we  fixed 
for  our  escape,  how  could  we  chmb  down  to  the  ground 
unobserved  ?  The  window  itself  offered  no  difficulties, 
for  it  was  above  the#street  and  on  the  first  floor,  so  that 
a  few  bedclothes  tied  together  would  suffice  to  lower 
a  man  out  of  the  barracks. 

Then,  while  I  was  still  watching  the  sentry,  a  differ- 
ent god  intervened.  A  hooded  girl  sidled  up  to  him, 
and  after  looking  around  to  see  that  nobody  was  watch- 
ing, he  crossed  the  road,  and  disappeared  with  her  into 
the  meadow  to  the  left  of  the  camp.  An  omen,  I 
thought.  If,  on  escape-night,  chance  spirited  away 
obstacles  as  easily  as  that,  all  would  be  well. 

Meanwhile  the  flat,  gray  houses  whitened  in  the  light 
of  the  young  moon,  and  the  river  Abana  radiated 
soft  shimmerings.  In  this  respect,  also,  chance  should 
favour  us.  About  a  week  later,  when  we  hoped  to 
leave,  the  moon  would  not  rise  until  after  midnight; 
so  that  darkness  would  help  us  to  slip  from  the  barracks, 
and  moonlight  would  help  us  as  we  moved  across  open 


74  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  j 

country.  Just  then  my  meditations  were  chased  away 
by  a  fantastic,  far-away  sound.  Somewhere  in  the 
maze  of  streets  a  wheezy  barrel  organ  was  playing — 
playing  Funiculiy  Funicula!  How  a  barrel  organ  found 
itself  in  Damascus,  and  in  war-time  Damascus,  I  did 
not  try  to  guess.  All  I  knew,  or  wanted  to  know,  was 
that  across  the  warm,  sensitive  night  air  there  floated 
the  lively  old  tune:  and  if  you  are  away  from  Europe 
take  it  from  me  that  nothing  will  bring  you  to  the  back 
streets  of  London,  of  Paris,  of  Naples  as  quickly  as  a 
barrel  organ  playing  Funiculiy  Funicula,  For  long  after 
the  barrel  organ  had  become  silent,  and  only  the  moon- 
light and  the  stillness  remained,  I  was  back  in  England. 

Late  next  morning  George  burst  into  the  room, 
with  a  beaming  face  and  a  palpable  desire  for  news 
telling. 

"Mow  chevy^  he  said  to  me,  **I  have  found  a  Druse 
who  will  guide  you.  He  knows  about  the  gold,  and  al- 
though not  quite  sure,  he  thinks  he  can  trust  you,  as 
British  officers,  to  see  that  he  gets  paid.  He  demands 
two  hundred  pounds  in  gold  when  you  reach  *X',  and 
fifty  pounds  in  paper  now,  for  the  hire  of  horses." 

I  was  overjoyed  at  this  new  prospect  of  a  road  to 
liberty;  but  when  I  had  translated  George's  French  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Australians,  M.  counselled  caution. 

"I  don't  like  the  sound  of  that  fifty  pounds  down," 
he  said.  "Tell  him  we  won't  pay  anything  until  we're 
outside  Damascus  and  have  the  horses." 

We  decided  that  unless  we  conformed  to  the  custom 
of  always  beating  down  a  bargain-adversary,  the  Druse 
would  think  we  could  be  blackmailed  for  any  amount 
of  money.    He  might  even  regard  too  ready  an  ac- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  75 

ceptance  of  his  terms  as  evidence  that  we  did  not  mean 
to  pay  on  arrival  at  "X." 

Finally,  we  told  George  to  place  the  following  terms 
before  the  Druse — one  hundred  pounds  in  gold  on  ar- 
rival, and  fifty  pounds  paper  when  we  were  on  horse- 
back and  away  from  Damascus.  For  the  present, 
nothing.  As  for  George  himself,  he  should  receive  fifty 
English  pounds  when  we  reached  safety  and  his  job  in 
Australia. 

Next  day  George  returned  from  the  bazaar  with  the 
reply  that  the  Druse  would  be  satisfied  with  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  pounds  in  gold  at  "X,"  and  agreed 
to  leave  the  question  of  ready  money  for  the  horses 
until  we  were  out  of  Damascus.  He  demanded  another 
twenty  pounds,  paper,  however,  for  the  man  who  was  to 
bring  back  the  horses  after  we  had"  ridden  to  the  moun- 
tains at  Deraa.  To  these  terms  we  agreed,  as  the 
withdrawal  of  the  demand  for  money  in  advance  evi- 
denced the  genuine  intentions  of  the  Druse. 

**The  Druse  desires  to  spot  you,"  said  George,  break- 
ing into  English.  "To-morrow  an  officer  will  lead  you 
to  public  baths.  When  I  say  to  make  attention,  ob- 
serve a  man  who  carry  yellow  burnous  and  robe."    \ 

And  so  it  happened.  We  had  our  bath,  and,  es- 
corted by  a  Greek  doctor  in  the  Turkish  army,  with 
several  guards  and  George  the  inevitable,  we  walked 
through  the  hot  streets  toward  the  bazaar. 

"Honest  to  God!"  said  George  suddenly — for  it  had 
been  agreed  that  this  phrase  should  signal  the  presence 
of  the  Druse. 

f^  I  searched  the  crowd  of  Arabs  gathered  in  the  road 
^t  the  comer  of  a  narrow  turning,  and  had  no  difficulty 


76  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

in  picking  out,  right  in  the  foreground,  a  tall,  fierce- 
moustached  man,  with  yellow  robe  and  yellow  head- 
dress. One  hand  rested  on  the  bone  butt  of  a  long 
pistol  stuck  through  his  sash,  and  with  the  other  he 
fingered  the  two  rings  round  his  burnous.  He  looked 
at  us  long  and  intently,  especially  at  H.,  with  his  six 
feet  four  inches  of  magnificent  physique;  then  backed 
into  the  growing  crowd  and  disappeared. 

**  Don't  look  to  behind  you,  my  dear,"  said  George, 
whose  inability  to  control  himself  had  again  blanched 
his  face,  "or  my  officer  observe." 

That  walk  to  and  from  the  big  hammam  in  the  centre 
of  Damascus  is  perhaps  the  most  vivid  of  my  memories 
of  the  city.  Wherever  we  passed,  a  mass  of  Arabs 
and  nondescripts  surged  around  us,  until  the  road  was 
blocked  and  our  guards  had  to  clear  the  way  forcibly. 
Bargaining  at  the  stalls  was  suspended  as  we  moved 
through  the  long,  covered-in  bazaar,  with  its  carpets 
and  prayer  rugs,  its  blood-sausages,  its  necklaces  in 
amber,  turquoise,  and  jade,  its  beautiful  silks  and  tawdry 
cottons,  its  copper  work,  its  old  swords  and  pistols,  its 
dirty,  second-hand  clothes — all  laid  out  haphazard  for 
inspection.  Once,  when  we  entered  a  shop,  the  crowd 
that  collected  before  it  was  so  large  that  the  guards 
took  us  outside  by  a  back  door. 

Yet  one  sensed  that  this  interest  was  for  the  most 
part  friendly.  The  Arabs  expected  the  British  army 
sooner  or  later,  and  wanted  the  British  army.  Mean- 
while, they  were  anxious  to  see  what  manner  of  men 
were  the  British  officers.  We  were  not  a  very  impres- 
sive group,  with  our  dirty,  much-creased  uniforms. 
What  saved  us,  from  the  point  of  view  of  display,  was 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  -^ 

the  tall,  upright  figure  and  striking  features  of  H.,  at 
whom  everyone  gazed  in  admiration. 

As  we  passed  through  the  gardens  on  the  way  home 
an  imam,  from  the  ground  before  a  mosque,  was  chant- 
ing something  to  a  small  gathering.  On  investigation 
we  found  a  large  map  of  Gallipoli  and  the  Dardanelles 
marked  out  in  the  soil,  with  hills  and  trenches  and  guns 
and  battleships  shown  on  it.  The  imam  was  telling  the 
Faithful  just  how  the  unbelievers  had  been  driven  off 
the  peninsula  by  the  invincible  Turkish  army.  This 
he  did  each  afternoon,  we  were  assured. 

Everywhere  was  evidence  of  destitution,  starvation, 
and  squalor.  The  streets  were  utterly  filthy,  as  if  they 
had  not  been  cleaned  for  months  or  years — ^which  was 
probably  the  case.  The  disused  tram-lines  reared  up 
two  or  three  feet  above  the  worn  road,  so  that  camels, 
donkeys,  and  pedestrians  constantly  tripped  over  them. 
Along  the  principal  streets  one  had  to  turn  aside,  every 
dozen  yards  or  so,  to  avoid  enormous  holes.  Half- 
crumbled  walls,  huts,  and  houses  were  everywhere 
apparent.  The  magnificent  old  mosque  which  is  one 
of  the  beauties  of  Damascus  was  decaying  into  de- 
crepitude, without  any  attempt  at  support  or  restora- 
tion. 

As  for  the  population,  most  were  in  rags,  very  few 
had  boots,  about  one  half  wore  sandals,  and  the  re- 
mainder went  about  barefooted.  Yet  even  the  des- 
titute Arabs  were  more  attractive  than  the  well-to-do 
Levantines  with  their  frock  coats  and  brown  boots 
and  straw  hats. 

All  the  poorer  Arabs  and  Syrians  looked  half  starved, 
and  we  must  have  passed  hundreds  of  gaunt  beggars — 


78  EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

men,  women,  and  children.  Worst  of  all  were  the  little 
babies,  huddled  against  the  walls  and  doorways.  Ribs 
and  bones  showed  through  their  wasted  bodies,  which 
were  indescribably  thin  except  where  the  stomach, 
swollen  out  by  the  moistened  grain  which  had  been 
their  only  sustenance,  seemed  abnormally  fat  by  con- 
trast. So  weak  were  they  that  they  could  scarcely  cry 
their  hunger  or  hold  out  a  hand  in  supplication.  Arab 
mothers,  themselves  on  the  verge  of  starvation,  had 
left  them,  in  the  vain  hope  that  Allah  would  provide. 
And  neither  Allah  nor  anybody  else  took  the  least  no- 
tice, until  they  were  dead.  The  police  then  removed 
their  small  bodies  for  burial;  and  more  starving  mothers 
left  more  starving  babies  by  the  roadside.  The  Greek 
doctor  told  me  that  forty  such  babies  died  in  Damascus 
each  day. 

The  next  few  days  were  buoyant  with  expectancy. 
We  collected  raisins  and  other  foodstuffs,  while  George 
went  backward  and  forward  into  the  city  to  com- 
municate with  the  Druse.  We  now  hoped  to  leave  the 
barracks  without  especial  difficulty.  The  Austrian 
sentry  below,  we  discovered,  remained  inside  the  door- 
way after  midnight,  so  that  it  would  be  possible  to  slip 
down  from  the  window  without  being  seen  or  heard 
by  him.  One  night  we  half-hitched  our  blankets  to- 
gether as  a  test,  and  found  that  they  would  be  fully 
strong  enough  to  bear  even  the  weight  of  H.,  if  tied  to 
an  iron  bedpost. 

A  more  difficult  problem  was  that  of  the  guard  out- 
side our  room.  There  were  three  blacks  who  performed 
this  sentry  duty  in  turn,  two  Sudanese  and  one  Sene- 
galese— Sambo,  Jumbo,  and  Hobo,  as  we  called  them. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  79 

Jumbo  and  Hobo  were  intensely  stupid  and  lazy.  They 
spent  their  night  watches  in  dozing  on  the  floor  of  the 
corridor.  Our  door  being  closed  each  night,  conditions 
would  be  ideal  if  either  of  them  were  there  on  escape- 
evening. 

Sambo  was  more  alert.  He  had  been  a  postal  mes- 
senger at  Khartoum,  and  as  such  spoke  a  certain  amount 
of  English.  When  Turkey  entered  the  war,  he  told  us, 
he  had  been  travelling  to  Mecca  on  a  pilgrimage,  and  the 
Turks  conscripted  him.  Twice  he  had  been  in  prison, 
once  because  he  attempted  to  desert,  and  once  be- 
cause an  Arab  prisoner  whom  he  was  guarding,  escaped. 
Apparently  he  had  learned  a  lesson  from  this  latter  mis- 
fortune, for  he  never  slept  when  on  sentry  duty.  Ob- 
viously, if  he  were  outside  our  door  on  the  evening,  we 
should  have  to  find  some  means  of  dealing  with  him. 
We  sent  George  to  buy  chloroform,  but  he  returned 
with  the  news  that  none  could  be  found  in  Damascus. 
Thereupon  we  made  a  gag  with  a  piece  of  pants  and  a 
chunk  of  rubber,  to  be  used  on  Sambo  if  necessary. 

Then,  with  these  preliminary  arrangements  settled, 
they  tumbled  down  like  a  house  of  cards.  We  were 
moved  to  a  room  on  the  north  side  of  the  building,  so 
that  a  number  of  arrested  Turkish  officers  might  be  put 
into  our  larger  apartment.  Our  first  thought,  on  en- 
tering the  new  quarters,  was  for  the  window.  Ten 
thousand  curses!  It  looked  on  to  an  open  courtyard. 
Two  sentries  promenaded  the  yard,  which  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  brick  wall. 

"My  dear,"  said  George  when  he  next  visited  us,  "the 
business  is  lost.  It  is  by  all  means  impossible  to  quit 
window  without  observation  from  Turks." 


8o  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

For  hours  the  AustraHans  and  I  sought  a  way  out  of 
the  new  dijSiculty,  and  sought  vainly,  for  it  was  George 
whose  cunning  rescued  our  plan  from  the  blind  alley 
into  which  it  had  been  drivtn.  He  would  leave  his 
rifle  at  the  top  of  the  back  stairway,  he  said,  then  come 
to  our  room  and  usher  us  along  the  corridor,  after  tell- 
ing the  black  guard  that  he  was  taking  us  to  an  officer's 
room  (as  often  happened  in  the  evening).  Next  he 
would  recover  his  rifle,  slip  down  the  stairway  to  the 
Austrian  section  of  the  barracks  and,  with  bayonet 
fixed,  lead  us  out  of  the  side  door  guarded  by  an  Aus- 
trian sentry.  The  advantage  of  the  Austrian  door  was 
that  the  sentry,  seeing  a  Turkish  soldier  walking  out 
with  prisoners,  would  think  he  was  taking  them  to  the 
railway  station,  or  not  think  about  the  matter  at  all; 
whereas  the  Turkish  guard  at  the  main  door  would 
have  recognized  George  and  known  that  something 
was  wrong. 

George  could  not  take  more  than  three  of  us,  as  a 
larger  number  with  only  one  guard  would  make  even 
the  Austrian  suspicious.  He  refused  point-blank  to 
return  to  the  barracks  and  repeat  the  performance,  so 
that  four  of  us  might  go.  C.  could  not  come,  for  per- 
sonal reasons  that  would  not  allow  him  to  let  his  fate 
remain  unknown  for  several  months.  The  party,  how- 
ever, was  still  one  too  many.  With  a  pack  of  cards  we 
settled  the  delicate  problem  of  who  was  to  stay  behind. 
M.  cut  lowest,  to  his  bitter  disappointment  and  my 
regret,  for  he  was  very  plucky  and  resourceful. 

Once  more  with  a  definite  plan  in  view — and  ap- 
parently a  better  one  than  the  last — H.,  R.,  and  I  fixed 
a  date  for  the  escape.     Having  calculated  the  times  of 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  8i 

the  rising  and  setting  of  the  moon,  and  communicated 
with  the  Druse,  we  chose  the  third  evening  from  the 
day  of  our  removal  to  the  new  room. 

Meanwhile,  we  had  been  treated  by  no  means  badly. 
A  few  nights  of  irritation  accustomed  us  to  the  plague 
of  bugs,  and  constant  searching  and  washing  kept  our 
clothes  fairly  free  from  more  repulsive  vermin.  For 
the  rest,  we  passed  the  days  with  poker,  bridge,  and  per- 
fecting our  plans.  We  could  not  grumble  at  the  food, 
for  we  messed  with  the  Turkish  officers,  who,  while  not 
feeding  as  well  as  German  privates,  never  actually  went 
hungry. 

Indeed,  we  met  with  much  kindness  and  considera- 
tion at  Damascus.  In  every  prison  camp  of  Turkey 
the  officers  and  guards  took  their  cue  from  the  com- 
mandant. If,  as  at  Afion-kara-Hissar  during  the  reign 
of  one  Muslum  Bey,  the  commandant  was  a  murderer, 
a  thief,  and  a  degenerate,  unspeakable  outrages  were 
committed.  If,  as  at  Baranki  Barracks,  Damascus, 
under  Mahmoud  Ali  Bey,  the  commandant  was  good- 
natured,  conditions  were  passable. 

Some  of  the  Turks,  in  fact,  wanted  to  be  too  friendly. 
The  deputy-commandant  invited  us  into  his  room  one 
evening,  and,  with  his  friends  sitting  around  and  George 
acting  as  interpreter,  asked  for  an  exposition  of  Eng- 
land's reasons  for  taking  part  in  the  war.  For  two 
hours  I  delivered  myself  of  anti-German  propaganda, 
though  I  could  not  tell  what  force  remained  in  my 
arguments  after  they  had  passed  through  the  filter  of 
George's  curious  translation.  Meanwhile,  the  deputy- 
commandant  looked  at  his  finger-nails  and  occasionally 
smiled.     He  was  non-committal  in  expressing  his  own 


82  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

views;  but  afterward,  when  coffee  was  handed  round, 
he  declared  that  the  talk  had  been  of  the  greatest  in- 
terest. 

This  same  officer  drove  us  one  afternoon  to  the  beau- 
tiful spot,  on  a  high  slope  outside  the  city,  where  the 
sources  of  the  Seven  Rivers  are  gathered  within  a  space 
of  fifty  yards.  In  the  scorching  heat  we  undressed 
and  bathed  in  the  River  Pharpar. 

We  had  ample  evidence  of  the  widespread  hatred 
of  the  Germans  throughout  Syria,  both  among  civilians 
and  soldiers.  Turkish  soldiers  expressed  the  greatest 
dislike  and  envy  of  the  Germans,  and  German  soldiers 
expressed  the  greatest  contempt  for  the  Turks.  As  for 
the  Arab  officers,  they  were  whole-heartedly  pro-British. 
Nahed  Effendi  Malek,  the  young  Arab  adjutant,  and 
his  friend  the  Arab  quartermaster  often  visited  us  when 
no  Turkish  officers  were  near.  The  pair  talked  the 
most  violent  sedition.  The  quartermaster  wanted  to 
be  with  his  brother,  a  prisoner  at  Alexandria.  The 
Turks  knew  this,  and  once,  when  in  prison  for  several 
weeks  as  a  political  suspect,  he  had  been  freed  only  by 
a  liberal  distribution  of  baksheesh  among  the  military 
authorities.  Both  he  and  Nahed  were  kept  separate 
from  their  families  while  the  Turks  levied  blackmail 
by  telling  them  that  the  lives  of  relatives  or  friends 
would  pay  forfeit  for  any  breach  of  loyalty.  Like  other 
officers  of  their  race,  they  were  now  kept  expressly  from 
the  fighting  front,  because  so  many  Arabs  had  deserted 
to  the  British. 

This  very  barracks,  declared  Nahed,  was  full  of  im- 
prisoned officers  whose  loyalty  the  Turks  suspected. 
Unless  they  could  bribe  their  way  to  a  release  they 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  83 

might  be  shut  up  in  one  small  room  for  months,  unpaid, 
forgotten,  and  living  on  such  food  as  their  friends  pro- 
vided. Then,  if  their  prayers  and  petitions  for  a  trial 
brought  about  a  courtmartial,  they  might  be  acquitted 
and  graciously  released;  but  neither  reparation  for  the 
months  of  captivity  nor  military  pay  for  the  period  of 
it  would  be  given. 

Our  own  room  had  lately  been  occupied  by  a  Turkish 
colonel,  who  shot  dead  a  fellow  officer.  Assassination 
being  a  less  serious  crime  than  dislike  of  oppression, 
and  the  colonel  having  been  an  expert  juggler  with 
military  suppHes  and  funds  (hke  so  many  Turkish 
colonels  who  bought  command  of  their  units  as  an  in- 
vestment in  a  colossal  corporation  of  Military  Graft, 
Incorporated),  he  delivered  sealed  envelopes  to  various 
high  officers  and  officials,  and  within  a  week  was  free. 

Nahed  and  his  friend  talked  savagely  of  the  hunger 
and  misery  that  ravaged  Syria,  of  the  killing  and  im- 
prisonment of  Arab  sheikhs,  of  their  hopes  of  an  inde- 
pendent Arab  kingdom,  of  their  galling  helplessness 
against  the  Turks  and  Germans  until  the  British  ar- 
rived. 

"But  once  let  the  British  reach  Deraa,''  said  Nahed 
Effendi,  "and  you  will  hear  of  such  an  uprising  as  Syria 
and  Arabia  have  never  known," — a  prediction  that  was 
to  be  fulfilled  in  the  following  autumn,  during  General 
Allenby's  whirlwind  advance. 

Sometimes,  instead  of  confiding  their  wrongs  and 
hatreds,  Nahed  and  his  friend  would  chant  Arabian 
songs  of  love  and  war,  or  order  George  to  translate  the 
stories  and  epigrams  of  Haroun-al-Raschid  and  other 
Arabian  notabilities.     Once  George  substituted  a  sen- 


84  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

tence  of  his  own  for  the  tale  he  should  have  retailed 
for  our  benefit : 

**My  dear,  I  must  go  to  see  my  friend.  Soon  it 
is  too  late,  and  my  officer  say  no.  Please  think  of  some 
request  I  perform  for  you." 

M.  laughed,  as  if  in  enjoyment  at  a  translated  story, 
and  H.,  turning  to  Nahed,  said  ''kweis  kateer'*  ("very 
good") — two  of  the  dozen  Arabic  words  that  he  knew.  A 
little  later  I  asked  for  and  received  permission  to  send 
George  to  buy  wine  for  us  in  the  bazaar;  and  the  mon- 
grel interpreter  with  a  " Mille  fois  merci,  mon  cher" 
shambled  off  to  see  the  Druse. 

We  realized  that  it  would  be  very  unfortunate  for 
little  Nahed  if  we  escaped,  and  we  should  be  sorry  in- 
deed to  think  of  him  in  prison  on  our  account.  But  it 
was  obvious  that  even  if  he  would,  he  could  not  come 
with  us,  and  we  certainly  dared  not  confide  in  him. 

As  I  lay  half  awake,  early  on  the  morning  of  May 
15th,  I  was  conscious  that  an  exceptional  day  had 
dawned.  But  my  drowsy  faculties  could  not  produce, 
from  the  dark  room  of  memory,  a  negative  of  what  was 
imminent.  Then  the  door  opened,  and  with  a  clatter 
of  mugs  and  a  cry  of  the  German  word  ''Milch''  there 
entered  an  Arab  milkman,  with  his  tin  bowl  slung  over 
his  shoulder. 

I  was  alert  in  an  instant.  Why,  of  course,  we  had 
reached  escape  day,  and  we  must  buy  a  stock  of  bis- 
cuits for  a  journey  from  this  dairyman,  whose  privilege 
it  was  to  sell  us  goat's  milk,  at  five  piastres  a  glass,  for 
our  breakfast. 

But  that  morning  he  had  brought  no  biscuits — and  this 
was  the  first  of  a  heart-breaking  sequence  of  obstacles. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  85 

Throughout  the  day  I  remained  in  a  state  of  high 
tension.  Yet  my  principal  concern  was  for  the  lack  of 
self-control  shown  by  George,  who  walked  about  with 
shaking  knees  and  unsteady  hands  and  anxious  face. 

"For  God's  sake  don't  show  yourself  Uke  that  to  the 
Turkish  officer,"  said  H. 

"My  dear,  I  am  not  brave,  and  fortune  never  visits 
me."     His  fear  was  pitiful. 

"Pray  for  fortune  then." 

And  George  prayed,  melodramatically  and  in  all 
solemnity:  "God  what  is  in  heaven,  take  us  quickly  to 
the  Arab  with  horses." 

The  thermometer  of  hope  quicksilvered  up  and  down 
every  few  minutes",  throughout  the  pregnant  hours  of 
afternoon.  For  the  ninety-ninth  time  I  examined  the 
packets  of  raisins,  the  bread,  and  the  water  bottles. 
For  the  hundredth  time  I  reviewed  the  details  of  our 
plan. 

Between  ten  p.m.  and  midnight  the  Druse  was  to  wait 
by  the  station,  with  long  headdresses  w^hich  should  be 
disguise  enough  for  the  moment,  because  in  the  darkness 
a  passerby  could  only  see  us  as  silhouetted  outlines. 
Soon  after  ten  George  was  to  take  H.,  R.,  and  me 
through  the  side  door,  as  already  described,  and  lead 
us  to  the  Druse.  Then  we  would  slip  out  of  Damascus 
to  the  spot  where  an  Arab  was  waiting  with  the  horses. 
We  must  ride  over  the  plain  all  night,  and  hide  the  next 
day  in  a  certain  Druse  village,  where  a  hut  had  been 
prepared  for  us.  We  could  buy  arms  in  the  village. 
We  would  travel  without  rest  throughout  the  following 
night  and  just  before  dawn  reach  the  mountains  outside 
Deraa,when  the  second  Arab  was  to  take  back  the  horses. 


86  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Once  in  the  mountains  and  among  the  Druse  tribes- 
men an  army  could  scarcely  retrieve  us.  We  should 
run  more  than  a  Httle  danger  from  the  nomads,  but 
these  might  be  friendly,  and  in  any  case  the  guide  would 
be  our  protector  and  mouthpiece  among  his  fellows. 

For  weeks  we  should  be  trekking  over  the  mountains 
and  desert  east  of  the  Turkish  lines  in  the  Jordan  valley 
and  the  hardships  would  be  very  great.  Eventually 
we  should  arrive  among  our  allies  of  the  Hedjaz. 

Having  reached  "X"  and  paid  off  the  Druse,  we 
could  be  taken  on  board  one  of  the  British  war  ships 
in  the  Red  Sea.  We  might  well  meet  a  raiding  party 
of  the  Emir  FeisuFs  Bedouins  near  Amman,  in  which 
case  safety  would  come  much  sooner,  and  we  might 
travel  by  aeroplane  to  the  British  army  in  Palestine. 

After  dinner  the  Turkish  signal  officer  invited  us  to 
his  room  for  coffee.  Having  no  legitimate  excuse  for 
declining,  we  chafed  under  his  small  talk  until  nine 
o'clock.  Then  Nahed  EfFendi  and  the  quartermaster 
visited  us,  and  again  we  were  forced  to  sit  still  and  de- 
liver, from  time  to  time,  in  response  to  the  translations 
of  George,  a  fretful  *'Yes"  or  ''No"  or  *'Good"  or 
"Thank  You." 

Ten  o'clock  came  and  went,  and  two  suggestions  that 
we  should  retire  to  bed  were  brushed  aside  by  our  visi- 
tors. By  now  the  Druse  would  be  waiting  for  us  out- 
side the  railway  station. 

Eleven  o'clock  arrived,  and  still  Nahed  continued  to 
draw  from  his  endless  store  of  tales  and  similes. 

**My  officer  say,"  translated  George,  **that  Arabian 
poet  compare  the  breasts  of  a  fellow's  beloved  to — 
please,  my  dear,  say  you  must  sleep.     I  shake  and  feel 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  87 

I  must  chuck  sponge.  Soon  it  is  too  late,  honest  to 
God." 

Ourselves  almost  desperate  with  annoyance,  we  per- 
formed a  series  of  lifelike  yawns,  and  declared  our- 
selves to  be  very  tired.  Thereupon,  to  my  great  relief, 
the  Arab  officers  withdrew,  with  George  in  attendance. 

I  followed  to  the  doorway,  and  spoke  to  George  when 
the  officers  had  entered  their  own  room. 

"In  three  minutes  you  must  come  back." 

**  I  will  try.     But  I  have  so  little  courage." 

"Think  of  the  job  in  Australia,  and  of  the  money." 

"Mon  cher,  I  have  thought  of  them  all  day  long,  but 
my  heart  is  saying,  bourn,  bourn  I  and  a  voice  tells  to  me 
'Quittez  gal '     But  I  will  come  back." 

He  did  not  come  back.  Before  George  had  left  me, 
evil  chance  sent  the  Turkish  deputy-commandant 
along  the  passage  for  one  of  his  rare  visits  of  inspection. 
He  looked  hard  at  us;  whereupon  George's  overwrought 
nerves  snapped,  and  he  broke  down  utterly. 

''Aa-ee!''  he  called. 

Next  he  grasped  instinctively  at  my  arm.  Trem- 
bling visibly,  he  lowered  his  head  and  waited.  I  backed 
into  the  doorway,  while  the  deputy-commandant  took 
George  to  Nahed's  room. 

What  followed  we  could  deduce  from  the  noises  that 
swept  the  corridor.  George  was  bullied  into  a  com- 
plete betrayal.  We  heard  furious  talk,  shouted  orders, 
and  the  unmistakable  sound  of  blows  with  the  bare 
hand.  Nahed  ran  to  our  room,  and  counted  us  fever- 
ishly. Then  came  the  corporal  of  the  guard,  puzzled 
and  scowling.  Finally,  six  Turkish  soldiers  replaced 
Jumbo  outside  the  door,  which  Nahed  locked. 


88  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Disgusted  with  George,  disgusted  with  ourselves, 
and  above  all  disgusted  with  fate,  H.  and  I  paced  up  and 
down  or  lay  sleepless  on  the  bedstead  through  hours  of 
utter  despair.  R.,  the  only  one  of  us  to  make  a  show  of 
indifference,  took  a  pack  of  cards,  played  patience,  and 
said  not  a  word. 

The  door  remained  locked  until  the  following  mid- 
day, when  the  commandant  arrived  with  Nahed  and 
George,  both  of  whom  showed  reluctance  to  enter. 

"My  officer  knew,"  declared  George,  with  eyes 
averted.  "You  are  to  collect  the  clothes  and  go  to 
railway.  They  send  you  to  Aleppo  I  guess."  I  no- 
ticed that  one  of  his  eyes  was  discoloured  and  swollen. 

The  commandant  searched  our  kits  very  carefully,  but 
confiscated  nothing,  not  even  the  store  of  food.  Then 
he  demanded  why  we  had  wanted  to  escape,  and  who 
had  been  helping  us. 

"Tell  him  we  refuse  to  say  anything,"  H.  answered. 
And  with  that  he  had  to  be  content. 

Surrounded  by  no  fewer  than  twelve  guards,  we  car- 
ried our  few  belongings  to  the  railway  station  and  en- 
trucked for  Aleppo.  The  interpreter  stayed  with  the 
Turkish  lieutenant  in  charge  of  us  until  the  train  left. 

We  took  care  not  to  look  at  George,  but  I  could  sense 
his  misery  and  shamefaced  discomfort.  At  length,  for 
the  first  time  since  the  betrayal,  he  showed  sincerity 
with  an  agonized  sentence  in  French,  spoken  from  the 
steps  of  the  truck: 

"I  am  mad  with  sorrow.     I  ask  pardon." 

Obviously  he  expected  and  hoped  for  an  answer, 
but  nobody  took  the  least  notice.  It  was  as  if  we  had 
not  heard. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  89 

"My  officer  has  beaten  me,  and  he  will  beat  me 
again.     My  face  is  big  with  hurts — see." 

Still  no  reply.  Then,  faintly,  as  the  Turkish  officer 
called  him  down  from  the  steps:  "I  have  so  little  cour- 
age.    I  ask  pardon.*' 

The  appeal  went  home,  and  I  half  turned  my  head. 
But  the  bitterness  of  betrayal  was  too  great,  and  think- 
ing that  a  few  beatings  were  not  punishment  enough, 
I  could  offer  no  comfort,  and  continued  to  ignore  him. 

As  the  train  chugged  across  Syria  toward  Aleppo,  we 
wondered  often  what  our  own  punishment  would  be. 
But  still  more  often  I  called  to  mind  a  futile  little  figure 
with  bent  shoulders,  a  greasy  face,  an  absurdly  long 
nose,  and  an  eye  that  was  discoloured  and  swollen, 
saying,  with  despair  in  his  voice:  "I  have  so  little 
courage.  I  ask  pardon."  And  I  regretted  not  having 
turned  my  head  to  look  George  in  the  face  and  answer 
him. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    BERLIN-BAGDAD   RAILWAY — AND   THE    AEROPLANES 
THAT   NEVER   FLEW 

A  SOLDIER  out  of  the  combat  is  not  necessarily  a  soldier 
hors  de  combat. 

Ambition  often  translates  a  great  dream  into  great 
achievement.  Misapplied  ambition  often  loses  the 
benefits  of  such  achievement. 

Four  thousand  miles  of  dislike,  distrust,  and  dis- 
organization separate  Berlin  from  Bagdad.  Four 
thousand  miles  of  friendship,  and  (except  for  one  short 
distance)  <:ontinuous  railway  communication  join  Lon- 
don to  Bagdad. 

All  of  which  diverse  and  disconnected  statements 
shall  be  Hnked  together  in  the  tale  of  the  Tunnel,  the 
Tommies,  and  the  Aeroplanes  that  Never  Flew. 

Before  the  train  left  Damascus  two  more  prisoners 
joined  the  party — W.,  who  had  been  in  hospital  at 
Nazareth  for  five  months,  and  P.,  recently  captured 
in  the  Jordan  valley. 

Made  desperate  by  our  failure  to  escape,  we  were 
ready  to  try  without  forethought  any  impossible  plan 
that  was  suggested  between  halts,  as  we  journeyed 
toward  Aleppo.  H.  and  I  decided,  if  the  train  slowed 
down,  to  jump  from  it  and  make  for  the  mountains. 

90 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  91 

Then,  at  evening,  we  would  find  the  German  aero- 
drome and  try  to  steal  a  machine,  chancing  such  pos- 
sible odds  as  alert  sentries,  well-guarded  hangars,  and 
empty  petrol-tanks.  Once  aboard  the  aeroplane  we 
could  fly  southeastward  to  the  Palestine  front.  But  the 
train  continued  at  a  speed  which  made  any  leap  from 
it  impossible,  so  that  we  abandoned  the  scheme. 

Two  rather  better  opportunities  were  provided  by  the 
officer  in  charge  of  our  guards,  a  young  Turk  who  was 
fanatical  and  unbehevably  stupid.  The  party  occupied 
two  compartments,  one  containing  three  prisoners,  the 
officer,  and  a  Turkish  soldier,  and  the  other  the  remain- 
ing four  prisoners,  a  corporal,  and  a  third  guard.  The 
officer  paid  us  not  the  least  attention,  whether  to  guard 
against  a  possible  escape,  to  provide  us  with  food,  or 
even  to  count  his  prisoners  from  time  to  time.  At  sun- 
set he  turned  eastward  and  murmured  his  prayers,  and 
at  odd  moments  throughout  the  day,  with  head  on 
breast,  he  muttered  what  I  supposed  to  be  passages 
from  the  Koran.  Nobody  but  Allah,  Mohammed,  and 
his  fanatical  little  self  seemed  to  interest  him. 

The  fanatic  had  a  basket  of  bread  and  dried  meat 
for  his  own  needs — but  for  his  own  needs  only.  After 
ten  hours  of  foodlessness  we  stopped  awhile  at  Homs, 
and  in  broken  Arabic  we  demanded  food.  He  pointed 
to  a  man  on  the  platform  who  was  selling  bread  and 
hard-boiled  eggs,  and  resumed  his  meditation.  We 
left  the  train  without  hindrance,  and  mingled  with  the 
people  who  surrounded  the  hawker.  Two  of  us,  at 
least,  could  have  slipped  away,  with  the  crowd  as 
screen.  But  the  nearest  point  on  the  coast  was  far 
distant,  and,  with  neither  compass  nor  a  supply  of  food. 


92  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

to  make  the  attempt  in  our  uniforms  would  have  been 
madness. 

On 'this  station  I  got  into  conversation  with  a  Mar- 
onite  woman,  who  talked  of  the  dreadful  conditions  in 
her  native  province  of  Lebanon.  The  crops  had  been 
commandeered,  the  cedars  and  the  fruit  trees  cut  down 
by  the  Turks  for  fuel,  the  people  systematically  starved. 
Already  thirty  per  cent,  of  Lebanon's  pre-war  popula- 
tion had  died  of  destitution,  she  declared,  including  her 
father  and  her  two  children. 

"The  people  of  Lebanon  perish,  and  neither  God  nor 
anybody  else  helps  us."  This  in  a  tone  of  dull  hope- 
lessness, as  if  she  were  beyond  even  despair.  And  even 
as  she  said  it,  many  a  consignment  of  Syrian  and  Ana- 
tolian grain  was  en  route  for  Germany. 

The  second  chance  came  at  Hamah,  where  we  halted 
at  dusk  for  half  an  hour.  A  little  restaurant  faced  our 
compartment,  and,  still  being  hungry,  we  made  for  it. 
The  Turkish  officer  ordered  us  to  stop,  while  a  guard, 
running  from  the  train,  clutched  at  H.'s  arm.  H.  shook 
him  off,  like  a  horse  shaking  off  a  fly,  said  '*mungaree*' 
(his  version  of  the  Arabic  for  food)  and  proceeded 
toward  the  restaurant.  The  young  officer  continued  to 
protest,  but,  when  we  took  not  the  slightest  notice,  he 
joined  us  at  the  buffet,  where,  for  the  price  of  three 
dollars,  one  could  buy  a  plate  of  goat's  meat  and  beans, 
with  bread  and  coffee.  Afterward,  while  the  Turk 
went  outside  with  four  of  our  number,  H.,  M.,  and  I 
stayed  behind  to  buy  bread. 

When  we  returned  to  the  platform  not  a  guard  was 
in  sight.  Moreover,  our  train  had  shunted  backward. 
To  reach  it  we  should  have  to  walk  fifty  yards.     Ahead 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  93 

of  us  we  could  see  the  little  fanatic,  stupidly  unconscious 
as  ever  of  our  location,  walking  between  the  rails  with 
the  remainder  of  the  party. 

** You're  the  linguist,"  said  H.  to  me.  "Hop  back 
quickly  and  buy  all  the  grub  you  can  find.  Get  enough 
to  last  us  to  the  coast.'' 

"Twelve  loaves  of  bread,  some  hard-boiled  eggs,  and 
some  raisins,"  I  demanded  of  the  waiter  in  the  buffet. 

He  disappeared  into  the  back  room.  I  waited,  un- 
comfortable under  the  curious  glances  at  my  faded  uni- 
form. 

"A  German  aviator,"  I  heard  one  man  tell  his  woman 
companion;  at  which  I  was  much  relieved,  although 
scarcely  pleased. 

The  waiter  could  supply  only  three  small  loaves  and 
a  dozen  eggs;  and  with  these  tied  in  a  bundle  I  returned 
to  H.  and  M. 

The  military  guard  of  the  station  was  at  the  farther 
end  of  the  platform.  To  avoid  him  we  had  to  walk 
along  the  line,  in  the  direction  of  our  own  train.  We 
intended  to  dodge  behind  some  waiting  trucks  about 
twenty  yards  ahead,  slip  over  the  siding  in  which  they 
stood,  and  so  to  open  country. 

Then,  as  we  were  moving  up  the  line,  the  adventure 
was  made  impossible.  Two  of  the  guards  came  runnmg 
toward  us.  We  continued  calmly  in  their  direction, 
so  that  they  showed  no  suspicions,  and  evidently 
thought  we  were  alone  as  a  result  of  misunder- 
standing. 

''  Saa-seda,'"  said  H.,  blandly,  as  he  offered  them 
cigarettes;  and  this  greeting  disposed  of  whatever 
doubts  they  may  have  had.     Yet  the  state  of  fright  into 


94  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

which  our  absence  plunged  the  Turkish  officer  had  the 
effect  of  a  shower-bath  upon  him.  He  roused  himself 
from  the  torpor  of  unintelligent  disregard;  and  for  the 
rest  of  the  journey  we  were  never  allowed  outside  the 
carriage. 

Thus,  once  again,  a  mad  plan  fell  through  at  the 
outset;  for  with  no  guide,  no  compass,  no  water,  and  the 
necessity  of  buying  more  food,  the  odds  would  have 
been  a  hundred  to  one  against  our  reaching  the  coast. 
And  even  if  we  had  reached  the  coast  it  was  improbable 
that  we  should  have  found  a  sailing-boat  waiting  to  be 
stolen. 

At  Aleppo  we  came  upon  some  Indian  prisoners. 
We  were  trudging  along  the  hot,  uneven  road  from  the 
railway  station  when  three  white-turbaned  figures  in 
khaki  saluted,  from  the  balcony  of  a  hospital.  One 
of  them  placed  a  crutch  under  his  left  armpit  as  he 
stood  to  attention.  This  simple  salute  warmed  the 
heart,  with  its  reminder  that  we  were  not  altogether 
outcasts.  We  returned  it  with  gusto;  as  did  a  passing 
German  officer,  who  thought  it  was  meant  for  him. 

We  were  taken  to  an  hotel  where  transient  Turkish 
officers  halted  on  their  way  to  Palestine  and  Mesopo- 
tamia. Fresh  from  the  failure  to  escape  from  Damas- 
cus, we  were  not  surprised  at  never  being  allowed  to 
leave  the  building.  Indeed,  I  was  astonished  at  not 
being  sent  to  some  prison,  and  presumed — rightly, 
as  it  turned  out — that  punishment  must  be  waiting  for 
us  farther  down  the  line.  For  the  rest,  we  spent  several 
by  no  means  uncomfortable  days  at  Aleppo,  helped 
thereto  by  sight-seeing  from  the  balcony. 

The  market-place  fronting  the  street  corner  below 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  95 

was  used  as  a  food  bazaar.  Each  evening  Arab 
and  Syrian  hucksters  arrived  with  flat  barrows,  or 
erected  rickety  stalls.  Then,  from  baskets  and  pan- 
niers, they  produced  their  wares,  which  they  laid  out  for 
inspection — loaves  of  bread,  bowls  of  soured  milk, 
basins  of  stew,  cooked  potatoes,  roasted  meats,  vege- 
tables, cakes,  nuts,  or  lengths  of  flexible  candy.  Some 
of  them  roasted  meat  or  vegetables  over  metal  bars 
placed  across  a  charcoal  fire. 

As  the  crowd  began  to  gather  the  policemen  cir- 
culated among  the  vendors,  looking  for  such  as  had  not 
paid  police  baksheesh  for  their  pitch.  Having  found  a 
victim  the  gendarme  would  lead  him  around  the  corner 
to  settle  accounts.  Afterward  the  stall-keeper  was  at 
liberty  to  trade  for  the  rest  of  the  evening.  Any  who 
could  not  or  would  not  pay  were  hustled  from  the 
market-place. 

Then,  until  about  midnight,  was  acted  a  succession 
of  minor  comedies,  amusing  or  pathetic.  Trial  by  taste 
was  evidently  the  custom;  and  since  Allah  had  provided 
hands  and  mouths,  why  use  forks  and  spoons?  In- 
tending buyers  dug  their  fingers  into  the  steaming 
dishes,  pulled  out  a  chunk  of  meat  or  a  potato,  and 
chewed  reflectively.  Then  they  either  purchased  or 
passed  on  to  the  next  stall,  while  somebody  else  stuff'ed 
a  hand  into  the  dish.  I  traced  a  few  men  and  women 
who,  by  tasting  meat  at  one  stall,  potato  at  another, 
and  bread  at  a  third,  must  have  eaten  quite  a  meal  for 
nothing.  This  was  rare,  however,  for  the  hucksters 
had  an  instinct  for  bona  fide  buyers,  and  kicks  for  such 
as  were  not. 

Over  there  is  a  seller  of  vegetables  who  has  dodged 


96  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

his  police  dues,  apparently  because  his  ready  cash  is  in- 
sufficient. A  gendarme  approaches,  whereupon  he 
picks  up  his  basket,  with  the  wooden  box  on  which  it 
rests,  and  fades  into  the  crowd.  When  the  policeman 
has  gone  he  reappears  and  resumes  business.  Twice 
more  must  he  shut  up  shop,  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  at 
a  time.  Finally  his  takings  allow  him  to  pay  the  bribe. 
His  wife  guards  the  stall  while  he  confers  with  the  police- 
man round  the  corner.  He  reappears,  and,  no  longer 
obhged  to  shun  overmuch  attention  cries  his  wares 
loudly  and  does  a  roaring  trade. 

The  candy-barrows  are  mostly  kept  by  small  boys 
comically  dignified  in  apron  and  fez .  Useless  to  think 
that  their  youth  makes  them  easy  game,  for  they  are 
sharp  as  pawnbrokers,  and  can  tell  in  the  fraction  of  a 
second  a  bad  note  or  coin.  Most  of  them  seem  to  have 
a  working  arrangement  with  some  gendarme  whereby 
if  an  adult  tries  to  swindle  they  shriek  invectives.  The 
gendarme  then  strolls  toward  the  stall,  and  the  would- 
be  cheat  wishes  he  hadn't. 

One  or  two  seedy  ruffians  hang  around  the  rim  of  the 
crowd,  awaiting  the  chance  of  some  petty  villainy. 
Presently,  out  of  the  crush  comes  a  little  Syrian  girl, 
carrying  a  bowl  of  milk.  A  much-moustached,  dirty- 
robed  Arab  follows  her  into  the  entrance  of  a  narrow 
street  where  he  suddenly  grabs  the  milk,  drinks  it, 
pushes  the  bowl  back  into  her  hands,  and  strides  away. 
The  little  girl  attracts  a  certain  amount  of  attention  by 
shrilling  her  protests;  but  the  wolfish  milk-drinker  has 
vanished.  A  gendarme  spectator  makes  no  pretence 
at  interference,  not  having  been  bribed  to  protect  stray 
children. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  97 

Soon  afterward  a  similar  outrage  is  perpetrated  by 
a  similar  ruffian,  who  snatches  a  chunk  of  meat  from 
an  old  woman's  basin  of  stew.  In  this  case  retribution 
comes  swiftly  and  suitably.  The  Man  who  Grabs 
Meat  has  failed  to  notice  that  the  weak  old  woman  is 
attended  by  a  strong  young  man,  who  has  lagged  be- 
hind to  talk  to  a  friend.  The  strong  young  man  leaps 
at  the  thief,  kicks  him  in  the  stomach — hard,  knocks 
him  down  when  he  doubles  up  helplessly,  and  proceeds 
to  beat  him.  The  old  woman  shrieks  her  venom.  The 
gendarme  is  much  amused. 

Through  the  changing  crowd  pass  the  drink-sellers, 
clanging  a  brass  cup  against  a  brass  can,  but  neither 
washing  nor  rinsing  the  cup  after  somebody  has  drunk 
from  it.  From  time  to  time  a  stall-keeper  slips  away 
for  a  glass  of  drak  in  the  near-by  cafe,  while  a  wife  or  a 
friend  guards  his  barrow. 

Between  eleven  o'clock  and  midnight  most  of  the 
traders  run  out  of  stock.  They  pack  up  their  kit,  and 
before  leaving  bargain  with  each  other  for  an  exchange 
of  surplus  foodstuffs  for  personal  use — two  loaves  for  a 
dish  of  vegetables,  a  can  of  milk  for  three  slices  of  meat. 
The  streets  empty,  the  cries  cease,  the  gendarmes  dis- 
appear with  their  baksheesh;  and  we  retire  to  join  the 
little  things  that  hop  and  crawl  in  our  bed. 

Always  there  was  something  to  distract  us.  A  Mo- 
hammedan official  of  the  Indian  Postal  Service,  for 
example,  provided  much  interest.  With  only  a  fez 
differentiating  his  uniform  from  that  of  most  native 
officers  of  the  Indian  Army,  we  accepted  him  at  first 
as  a  fellow-prisoner.  But  when,  at  table,  he  asked 
leading  questions  about  the  Palestine  operations,  H. 


98  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

winked  at  me  and  fingered  his  lips  as  a  signal.  We 
took  the  hint,  and  answered  vaguely. 

''Don't  like  the  look  of  the  little  blighter,"  said  H., 
after  dinner;  ''let's  watch  him." 

He  was  worth  watching.  Every  day,  we  found,  he 
walked  about  the  streets  of  Aleppo  without  a  guard. 
Moreover,  he  was  living  by  himself  in  a  comfortable 
room.  While  this  exceptional  treatment  of  a  prisoner 
did  not  prove  treachery,  the  circumstantial  evidence 
was  fairly  damning.  We  became  as  unopened  clams 
when  he  talked  to  us. 

This  was  the  right  attitude,  for  later,  when  at  a  con- 
centration camp,  we  heard  of  an  Indian  official  who  was 
an  out-and-out  traitor.  Sometimes  he  was  at  full 
Hberty  in  Constantinople,  sometimes  he  talked  in  rail- 
way trains  to  newly  captured  prisoners,  sometimes  he 
talked  with  them  in  hospitals.  Once,  at  a  hospital  at 
Mosul,  he  was  placed  next  to  a  wounded  officer  taken  in 
a  recent  battle.  His  assumed  complaint  was  influenza. 
Yet  he  was  given  full  diet,  and  his  temperature  remained 
normal,  while  he  lay  in  bed  and  asked  questions  about 
the  Meaopotamian  campaign. 

A  prisoner  of  war  in  the  Orient,  far  more  than  the 
traveller,  senses  the  spirit  of  his  surroundings.  Tem- 
porarily he  is  of  the  Orient.  Of  necessity  his  captors 
regard  him  as  somebody  more  intimate  than  the  tran- 
sient Westerner  who,  while  moving  freely  among  them, 
lives  according  to  Western  custom  and  tradition;  and 
of  necessity  the  man  who  is  in  the  power  of  Easterns, 
and  forced  to  live  according  to  Eastern  customs,  is 
more  likely  to  realize  the  mental  attitude  whereby  the 
crooked  road  is  chosen  in  preference  to  the  straight, 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  99 

to-morrow  never  comes,  anything  unexpected  may  hap- 
pen at  any  time,  and — to  repeat  an  illustration  of  my 
friend  Jean  Willi  the  dragoman — a  man  may  get  mar- 
ried in  the  morning,  and  be  a  solitary  fugitive  for  his 
life  in  the  evening. 

So  it  was  with  us.  The  continuity  of  impressions 
and  experiences  reacted  on  me  till  I  forgot  to  remember 
that  I  was  an  ordinary  Englishman,  and  became  as 
fatalistic  and  unsurprised  as  the  Turks  and  Arabs  them- 
selves. Somewhere  or  other,  I  knew,  we  should  be 
punished  for  having  wanted  to  escape.  Of  what  the 
punishment  might  consist  we  guessed  nothing,  except 
that  it  would  probably  find  us  quite  unprepared.  Mean- 
while, it  was  of  absorbing  interest  to  sit  on  the  balcony 
at  Aleppo,  and  watch  the  crowd  in  the  bazaar. 

On  leaving  Aleppo  we  knew  neither  the  next  stage 
of  the  journey  nor  our  ultimate  destination;  and  we 
were  content  that  it  should  be  so,  for  a  future  that  is 
certain  to  be  unpleasant  is  better  indefinite  than  defi- 
nite. 

This  time  our  escort  consisted  of  two  gendarmes  and 
two  soldiers.  First  we  were  herded  into  a  third-class 
compartment,  windowless  and  filthy.  Already,  be- 
fore we  arrived,  unwashed  and  unkempt  peasants  had 
crowded  into  it;  so  that  our  party  of  eleven  was  able  to 
occupy  seven  seats  only.  One  of  the  gendarmes,  who 
could  murder  French,  advised  us  never  to  place  our  few 
belongings  out  of  reach. 

"Or,"  said  he,  "we  meet  darkness  and — pouf! — 
everything  vanish." 

We  liked  the  looks  of  neither  the  carriage  nor  the  fel- 
low-passengers, and  thought  how  much  more  pleasant 


100         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

a  goods  truck  would  be.  R.  and  I  persuaded  a  gendarme 
to  take  us  to  the  office  of  the  station  commandant  in 
the  hope  of  being  allotted  different  quarters.  The 
commandant  was  polite,  but  pretended  that  he  could 
offer  nothing  better. 

Then,  as  we  passed  along  the  platform,  I  saw  a  clean, 
covered-in  truck,  with  a  few  German  soldiers  inside  it. 
One  man  leaned  idly  against  the  entrance,  and  him  I 
asked  politely  if,  since  there  was  so  much  room  to  spare, 
they  could  lend  us  a  corner. 

'* AusgeschlossenI"  he  growled.  "  Wir  wollen  keine 
Englander.^' 

We  were  about  to  move  on,  when — **  Was  gibt's?" 
called  a  Feldwebel  as  he  stepped  from  the  truck. 

I  explained  that  seven  British  officers,  two  of  them 
wounded,  longed  for  floor-space,  so  that  they  would  not 
be  herded  with  odorous  Turks. 

"Perhaps  we  can  manage  it,"  said  the  Feldwebel. 

"What's  Paris  like  now?"  he  asked  suddenly,  and 
went  on  to  explain  that  before  the  war  he  was  a  bank 
clerk  there.  With  one  eye  on  the  space  in  the  truck, 
I  admitted  to  having  lived  for  a  time  on  the  rive  gauche, 
discussed  peace-time  and  war-time  Paris,  and  even — 
for  one  will  put  up  with  a  lot  to  avoid  travelling  in  a 
Turkish  third-class  carriage — listened  patiently  to  the 
German's  reminiscences  of  a  love  affair  with  a  French 
singer. 

This  patience  was  rewarded.  He  took  a  referendum 
of  his  five  companions;  and  all,  except  the  surly  brute  to 
whom  I  had  first  spoken,  agreed  to  cede  half  the  truck. 
The  Feldwebel  asked  permission  of  a  German  major 
to  ask  us  inside,  and  the  major  agreed. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— And  FLIGHTS         loi 

"  But  only  because  you  happen  >  td- '-  be^  *  fellow- 
Europeans,"  he  explained,  "while  the  Turks  are  not." 

A  small  bribe  to  the  gendarme,  and  we  moved  thank- 
fully from  the  Turkish  compartment.  There  was  room 
enough  for  all,  prisoners  and  guards,  to  lie  on  the  floor 
of  the  truck,  so  that  by  comparison  we  travelled  de 
luxe.  The  Germans  were  friendly;  and  the  Feldwebel, 
after  I  had  pretended  to  be  interested  in  more  tales  of 
his  affaires  de  cceur,  offered  us  a  supply  of  tea,  with  the 
loan  of  a  spirit-stove  for  boiling  it. 

So,  with  poker  and  talk,  we  travelled  across  Asia 
Minor.  On  three  of  the  next  four  evenings  a  certain 
amount  of  excitement  was  produced  by  Turkish  soldiers' 
attempts  to  desert  when  the  train  halted.  They  ran 
toward  the  hills,  sometimes  fired  upon  and  sometimes 
chased.  Several  were  captured,  several  got  away  and 
went  to  swell  the  huge  total  of  brigands. 

In  that  part  of  191 8  the  number  of  brigands  all  over 
Turkey  was  enormous.  Hundreds  of  thousands  de- 
serted from  the  army,  and  of  these  scores  of  thousands 
took  to  the  mountains  and  wild  places,  there  to  become 
robbers.  Travelling  on  foot,  on  horseback,  or  on  don- 
key-back across  AnatoHa  was  unsafe  in  the  highest 
degree.  In  every  fastness  one  would  be  certain  to  meet 
a  band  of  armed  ruffians,  destitute  and  utterly  merci- 
less, who  would  cheerfully  kill  for  the  sake  of  a  pair  of 
boots  or  a  shirt.  More  than  a  few  German  soldiers 
who  had  walked  a  mile  or  two  from  the  beaten  track 
were  killed  by  brigands.  Many  of  the  gendarmes  sent 
to  deal  with  the  robber  band  were  found  dead,  with 
their  heads  battered  in.  Many  others  were  hand-and- 
glove  with   them   and    gave   information   of  possible 


I02         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

plunder.  SGmetlmes  a  ^ailg  would  descend  on  a  vil- 
lage, kill  a  few  inhabitants  as  a  warning  to  the  others, 
and  proceed  to  steal  everything  worth  the  stealing  be- 
fore they  retired. 

We  detrained  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Taurus 
Mountains  and  were  transferred  to  the  narrow-gauge 
line  that  traversed  the  Taurus  tunnel  before  the  broad- 
gauge  railway  was  completed.  For  eight  hours,  on  a 
swaying  little  train  with  miniature  engine,  we  moved 
through  the  tunnel's  half-light,  with  an  occasional  in- 
terval of  sunlight  at  gaps  between  the  mountains. 

The  great  Taurus  tunnel  was  the  solution  of  the  worst 
obstacle  to  the  Berlin-Bagdad  Railway.  With  Serbia 
overrun  and  Bulgaria  and  Turkey  as  Germany's  pup- 
pets, the  line  from  Berlin  to  Constantinople  was 
straightforward.  Already  in  191 5  the  AnatoHan  Rail- 
way linked  Constantinople  to  Konia.  At  the  eastern 
end  of  the  Berlin-Bagdad  chain  the  line  from  Bagdad — 
once  Turkey  should  have  regained  it — could  be  ex- 
tended across  the  desert  to  Mosul;  and  the  stretch  of 
country  from  Mosul  to  Aleppo  would  offer  no  difficul- 
ties. Between  Konia  and  the  line  from  Aleppo,  how- 
ever, was  the  natural  barrier  of  the  Taurus  Mountains. 

The  rock  stratum  in  the  Taurus  is  among  the  hardest 
in  the  world.  For  many  months  it  resisted  all  ordinary 
drills.  The  German  engineers  caused  various  special 
drills  to  be  made;  and  then,  after  infinite  labour  and 
experiment,  began  boring  slowly  through  the  rock.  The 
natural  difficulties — precipices,  steep  slopes,  chasms,  and 
gorges — ^were  tremendous.  Nobody  who  has  passed 
through  the  hollowed  rock  can  deny  that  the  tunnel  is 
a  magnificent  piece  of  engineering,  especially  the  sus- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  103 

pension  bridge  across  a  giant  gorge  on  the  western 
slope. 

Trains  began  running  through  the  Taurus,  along  the 
broad-gauge  line,  just  before  the  Armistice;  and  the 
Berlin-Bagdad  Railway,  including  this  wonderful  tun- 
nel, then  became  the  London-Bagdad  Railway  Al- 
ready the  rails  stretch  eastward  to  Mosul,  while  the 
westward  rails  from  Bagdad  are  fast  moving  from 
Samarra  to  Mosul.  These,  when  completed,  will  be  the 
last  links  in  a  railway  chain  from  Boulogne  to  Bagdad. 
When — and  if — a  Channel  tunnel  is  constructed  the  chain 
will  reach,  without  a  break,  from  London  to  Bagdad. 

Throughout  the  war  this  work  on  the  Anatolian  Rail- 
way was  largely  done  by  British  and  Indian  soldiers, 
mostly  from  among  the  survivors  of  the  captured  garri- 
son of  Kut-el-Amara.  With  them  were  a  few  German 
technicians,  some  Turkish  guards,  and  many  Turkish 
labourers.  As  workmen  the  Turks  were  hopeless,  ex- 
cept when  set  to  tasks  that  required  no  intelligence; 
and  even  then  they  shirked.  The  Tommies,  who  were 
better  paid  and  fed  by  the  Germans  than  were  the  pris- 
oners working  for  the  Turks,  estabhshed  a  curious 
ascendancy.  When  it  suited  them  they  did  four  times 
the  work  of  the  Turks.  They  had  initiative,  they  could 
be  trusted.  It  was  not  long  before  some  of  them  were 
in  charge  of  Turkish  gangs.  Several  filled  positions  of 
importance,  with  good  salaries  and  plenty  of  freedom. 

Having  left  the  tunnel  and  halted  for  a  few  hours  at 
Belamedik,  we  were  met  by  groups  of  these  prisoner- 
officials  eager  for  news  of  the  war.  They  wore  civiHan 
clothes,  furnished  by  the  Dutch  Legation  at  Constan- 
tinople.    Such   as   had   clean   collars   and   hats   were 


104         EASTERN  NIGHTS-AND  FLIGHTS 

greeted  respectfully  with  the  title  of  effendi  by  the 
Turkish  labourers.  One  Tommy — a  Glasgow  ware- 
houseman— had  charge  of  all  the  office  staff,  with  Greek 
clerks  under  him.  Another — an  Australian — ^was  act- 
ually paymaster  of  this  section  of  the  construction  de- 
partment. Thousands  of  dollars  passed  through  his 
hands  each  week,  and  the  German  officials  trusted  him 
implicitly.  It  was  an  extraordinary  position — British 
prisoners  of  war,  in  the  wildest  part  of  Anatolia,  as 
valued  officials  on  the  Berlin-Bagdad  Railway. 

From  Belamedik  we  proceeded  to  Bosanti,  where,  in 
those  days,  the  broad-gauge  line  ended  and  the  narrow- 
gauge  line  began.  There  we  stayed  for  a  night  and  a 
morning.  At  Bosanti,  also,  there  was  a  band  of  British 
prisoners,  some  of  whom  took  us  to  their  hut  and  de- 
manded the  latest  war  news.  At  that  time  we  had 
little  that  was  good  to  tell.  The  German  drive  toward 
Amiens  and  Paris  was  in  full  swing,  the  Italians  had 
been  badly  beaten  on  the  Piave,  the  tonnage  sunk  by 
submarines  was  enormous.  Our  one  bright  item  of 
news  was  that  thousands  of  Americans  were  pouring 
into  France  daily.  This  greatly  surprised  the  isolated 
prisoners,  who,  from  what  they  had  been  told  by  the 
Germans  or  had  read  in  the  Turkish  papers,  thought 
that  no  American  troops  could  have  arrived  on  the 
Western  front. 

Having  distracted  the  guards'  attention  by  giving 
them  cocoa  in  a  far  corner  of  the  hut,  the  Tommies 
revealed  a  plan  of  escape.  A  party  of  five — two  Austra- 
lians, two  Englishmen,  and  a  French  petty  officer  from 
a  captured  submarine — had  built  a  collapsible  boat. 
In  three  weeks'  time  they  would  apply  for  twenty-four 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  105 

hours'  rest  from  work,  a  privilege  allowed  by  the  Ger- 
man supervisors  every  three  months.  Carrying  the 
boat  in  sections,  and  enough  food  for  a  fortnight,  they 
would  then  slip  away  and  begin  tramping  toward  the 
coast,  near  Mersina.  They  expected  to  be  walking 
for  about  ten  days.  Afterward  they  would  assemble 
the  boat  at  night  and  put  to  sea,  in  the  hope  of  either 
being  picked  up  by  an  Alhed  vessel  or  rowing  to  Cyprus. 
Five  months  had  passed  in  building  the  boat,  the  work 
being  done  inside  the  hut  at  odd  moments,  sometimes 
by  day  and  sometimes  by  night,  but  always  with  a  man 
on  the  look-out  for  intruders.  Tools,  strips  of  metal, 
and  a  huge  sheet  of  canvas  had  been  smuggled  out  of 
the  German  workshops. 

After  making  sure  that  the  guards  were  unsuspicious, 
an  Australian  lifted  the  tip  of  a  plank  beneath  his  bed, 
and  extracted  one  of  the  steel  ribs.  It  was  beautifully 
made,  with  folding  joint  in  the  centre  and  clasp  and 
socket  at  either  extremity.  He  also  produced  a  com- 
pass and  a  revolver  bought  from  a  friendly  Austrian. 
Both  these  articles  would  be  necessary,  the  compass 
because  without  it  they  would  be  unable  to  follow  the 
road,  and  the  revolver  because  they  would  be  certain 
to  meet  brigands. 

One  can  imagine  the  determination  and  perseverance 
that  made  possible  these  long  hours  of  secret  work  on  the 
collapsible  boat,  during  months  of  designing,  of  filching 
the  required  materials,  of  odd-moment  construction 
under  great  difficulty,  always  with  the  fear  of  discovery. 

I  wish  it  were  possible  to  tell  of  their  success.  About 
a  month  after  we  left  Bosanti  they  slipped  away,  ac- 
cording to  plan.     Carrying  the  boat  in  sections,  besides 


io6         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

food  and  the  oars,  they  walked  in  night  marches  across 
the  mountains  and  down  the  wild  slopes  fronting  the 
coast.  Three  times  they  met  brigands,  but  the  re- 
volver enabled  them  to  bluff  their  way  through. 

And  then,  when  already  within  sight  of  the  sea,  a 
gendarme  found  them.  Four  of  the  plucky  five  were 
captured,  while  the  fifth  managed  to  hide  in  a  cleft  be- 
tween two  rocks  with  the  complete  framework  of  the 
boat.  That  night  he  dragged  it  down  to  the  deserted 
part  of  the  beach.  On  the  following  night  he  pieced  it 
together.  He  put  to  sea,  and  for  eight  hours  made  a 
desperate  effort  to  leave  the  coast.  But  the  shoreward 
currents  were  too  strong  for  him,  and  the  weak  little 
craft  drifted  back.  He  was  recaptured,  and  sent  to 
join  the  other  adventurers  in  prison. 

In  the  morning,  while  waiting  for  our  train,  we 
watched  the  Tommies  at  work.  Six  aeroplanes  were 
on  their  way  to  Palestine,  and  the  prisoners  were  told 
to  transfer  them  to  the  small-gauge  railway.  The  men 
seemed  listless  and  unhasteful  as  they  carried  the  ma- 
chines to  a  secluded  siding  for  the  reloading,  but  I  was 
puzzled  to  find  that  when  they  began  packing  the  aero- 
plane sections  on  the  small  trucks  they  showed  keen- 
ness and  even  enthusiasm.  In  the  distance  we  could 
see  them  grouped  around  each  truck  in  turn,  as  they 
worked  steadily  throughout  the  morning. 

"You  always  as  keen  in  handling  Hun  war  material?'' 
asked  H.  of  a  burly  Londoner  of  the  old  Regulars,  who 
strolled  toward  us  from  the  siding. 

"Sometimes  we  are,  sir;  sometimes  we  ain't." 

"You  couldn't  have  done  a  better  morning's  work 
in  a  munitions  factory  at  home." 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  107 

"That's  right.     We  done  a  good  mornin's  work." 

"  But  these  are  Hun  aeroplanes,  man.  What  the *' 

"As  yew  remark,  sir,  they're  'Un  airerplanes.  But  I 
doubt  if  they'll  ever  fly." 

Then  we  guessed.  He  amplified  the  guesses  with 
details. 

"Yus;  we  does  er  bit  er  wreckin' — sabbertage,  as  yer 
might  say.  We  carry  things  across  to  that  'ere  sidin', 
and  nobody  can  say  as  we  don't  bee-ave  heeyewtiful  till 
we  gets  there.  Then  we  open  er  box  er  two,  see  what's 
inside,  and  proceed  according  to  reggerlations.  Crim- 
ernul,  I  calls  it.     .     .     . 

"That  'ere  sidin's  useful  place.  Aht  er  the  way,  yer 
know.  The  Boches  don't  go  there.  'Course,  if  any 
Boches  er  near,  we  resoom  ligitimite  operations  till 
they've  'opped  it.  Turks?  We  don't  let  *em  see 
neither  if  we  can  'elp  it.  Wuncertwice  Turkish  askas 
've  seen  us  at  play,  but  they  only  larf.  They  'ate  the 
'Uns  a  blurry  sight  more'n  we  do.  Why,  I  remember 
when  a  coupler  Turks  ^elped  in  the  good  work  one  morn- 
in'. 

"Guns  and  airerplanes  is  'andiest,"  he  continued. 
"Yer  see,  when  we  'ave  the  breech-block  uv  a  gun  it 
don't  need  long  to  take  aht  some  gadget  or  other,  ac- 
cordin'  as  the  gunners  with  us  sez.  Airerplanes  we 
attack  mostly  on  the  longeerongs — those  ribs  o'  wood 
that  runs  dahn  the  length  uv  the  body,  ain't  they? 
English  pilot  '00  passed  dahn  the  line  some  months 
ergo  giv'  us  the  tip.  'Course,  we  give  the  other  parts 
a  bit  uv  attention — ^wires  and  sechlike.     .     .     . 

"No,  it  don't  seem  likely  as  those  things  over  there'll 
fly  fer  a  long  time." 


io8         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

It  certainly  didn't  seem  likely.  Besides  ripping  open 
the  fuselage  fabric  and  cutting  some  of  the  longerons, 
the  Tommies  had  hacked  at  the  struts  and  clipped  some 
bracing  wires.  They  had  prised  open  the  wooden 
cases,  and,  before  replacing  the  covers,  had  snapped 
spars,  bent  elevators  and  rudders,  and  been  generally 
unpleasant  to  the  planes.  Similar  wrecking  was  being 
done,  in  greater  or  lesser  degree,  at  Belamedik  and 
other  points  on  the  railway  where  prisoners  were  forced 
to  work. 

The  ill-treatment  of  those  six  aeroplanes  at  Bosanti 
had  a  peculiar  sequel.  When  the  British  entered 
Nazareth  (the  Turco-German  headquarters  in  Palestine) 
during  General  Allenby's  final  advance,  they  captured 
most  of  the  staff  documents.  Among  the  aviation 
papers  was  a  letter  from  the  O.  C.  German  Flying  Corps 
on  that  front  to  Air  Headquarters  in  Germany,  com- 
plaining bitterly  about  the  bad  packing  and  the  bad 
handhng  in  transit  of  aeroplanes  sent  to  Palestine.  As 
an  instance  it  mentioned  these  very  machines  (my 
comparison  of  dates  and  details  established  that 
point) — single-seater  scouts  of  the  Fals  type — and 
declared  that  not  one  of  them  was  fit  to  be  assembled 
for  flying.  Enclosed  was  a  photograph  of  some  queer- 
looking  debris  that  had  once  been  a  wing.  The  protest 
ended  with  a  request  that  the  men  who  packed  the  six 
craft  should  be  punished. 

Boches  are  Boches,  but  Justice  is  Justice;  and  with 
memories  of  what  I  saw  at  Bosanti,  I  hope  that  the 
packers  were  not  punished. 

Having  waved  good-bye  to  these  men  who,  though 
prisoners,  were  helping  the  British  armies  so  effectively, 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         109 

we  passed  on  toward  Konia.  And  even  as  we  moved 
westward  from  Bosanti  the  Aeroplanes  That  Never 
Would  Fly  moved  eastward,  through  the  Taurus  tunnel 
that  never  would  be  a  link  in  a  great  chain  of  railways 
from  BerHn  to  Bagdad. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CUTHBERT,  ALFONSO,  AND  A  MUD  VILLAGE 

If,  at  midnight,  you- were  comfortably  asleep  in  a 
railway  carriage,  and  some  Turkish  guards  dragged 
you  out  of  it  and  led  you  along  a  puddled  track  to  a 
mud  village  in  the  most  god-forsaken  part  of  Anatolia, 
while  the  skies  rained  their  damnedest  on  you  and  your 
one  spare  shirt,  you  might  he  annoyed.  Possibly  you 
would  cry:     "To  hell  with  the  Turks!" 

Such,  at  any  rate,  was  H/s  comment,  shouted  at 
intervals  every  few  seconds,  while  we  watched  the 
train  move  Constantinople-ward,  leaving  us  at  a  small 
village  called  Alukeeshla. 

Cuthbert  and  Alfonso  (as  we  named  the  two  soldiers 
who  brought  us  from  Bosanti)  had  told  us  we  were  going 
to  Afion-kara-Hissar.  So  we  went  to  Alukeeshla.  Be- 
ing unable  to  read  or  write,  they  failed  to  notice  that 
the  composite  ticket  given  them  for  seven  prisoners  and 
two  guards  was  valid  only  as  far  as  this  village.  Their 
surprise  was  therefore  as  great  as  ours  when  the  con- 
ductor turned  the  whole  party  out  of  the  train.  Cer- 
tainly, said  he,  while  reading  a  paper  produced  by 
Cuthbert,  we  were  bound  for  Afion-kara-Hissar; 
but,  according  to  these  written  instructions,  there  was 
to  be  an  indefinite  halt  at  Alukeeshla.  It  was 
typical  of  Turkish  official  methods — guards  not  know- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  iii 

ing  what  must  be  done  with  the  prisoners  under  their 
charge. 

Cuthbert  woke  the  sleepers,  and  began  throwing 
luggage  on  to  the  platform.  In  his  flurry  he  dropped 
a  kit-bag  on  W.'s  badly  wounded  arm.  The  sight  of 
W.  in  pain,  following  upon  our  many  discomforts  and 
annoyances,  sent  H.  berserk.  "To  hell  with  the 
Turks!"  he  yelled,  then  stepped  one  pace  backward, 
swung  a  long  leg,  and  shot  his  size  eleven  foot  at  Cuth- 
bert. The  kick  lifted  the  greasy  little  guard  from  the 
floor,  and  sent  him  hurtling  through  the  door  of  the  com- 
partment, outside  of  which  he  fell  on  all  fours. 

Far  from  showing  resentment  he  was  obviously 
cowed.  Having  picked  himself  up  he  asked  us,  hum- 
bly enough,  to  leave  the  train.  Not  wishing  to  make 
a  bad  situation  worse  by  inviting  violence,  we  complied, 
while  trying  to  soothe  H.,  who  continued  to  consign 
all  Turks  to  flaming  perdition.  Evidently  Cuthbert 
and  Alfonso  thought  they  had  to  deal  with  a  madman, 
and  kept  out  of  his  way. 

Nobody  in  Alukeeshla  had  heard  of  our  existence; 
and  no  quarters,  of  course,  had  been  allotted.  The 
wretchedness  of  our  midnight  search  in  a  mud  village 
for  somewhere  to  rest  was  so  complete  as  to  be  humor- 
ous; and  as  we  trudged  through  the  rain  and  the  dark- 
ness, and  fell  into  the  deep  puddles  that  filled  every 
hole  in  the  narrow,  badly  kept  street,  we  laughed  from 
sheer  misery,  so  that  the  guards  must  have  thought  we 
were  now  all  mad. 

We  disturbed  the  inmates  of  four  hovels  before  finding 
the  two-roomed  building  that  served  as  gendarmerie 
headquarters.     Clearly,   the    policeman    whom   Cuth- 


112         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

bert  then  roused  from  his  sleep  on  the  floor  of  the  front 
room  disHked  us,  and  above  all  disliked  going  out  into 
the  night.  After  grumbling  and  protesting  for  five 
minutes  he  lit  a  lantern,  scowled  his  ugliest,  and  led 
the  party  through  more  puddles  to  a  barn.  With 
many  a  creak  the  door  of  it  was  unlocked  by  means  of 
a  rusty  key. 

Three  sorry  scarecrows  rose  up  and  blinked  at  the 
lantern,  then  sank  down  again  resignedly.  The  at- 
mosphere was  indescribably  musty  and  dusty.  Re- 
volting garbage  of  every  species  covered  the  earthen 
floor.  The  wooden  walls  were  clotted  with  dirt:  some- 
thing with  wings  could  be  heard  flitting  about  near  the 
high  roof.  The  three  prostrate  scarecrows  were  dis- 
gusting, not  because  of  their  rags  and  their  filth,  but 
because  of  their  general  suggestion  of  bestiality. 

"The  prison,"  explained  the  gendarme  grandilo- 
quently, as  he  waved  his  hand  and  moved  toward  the 
door. 

Now  Cuthbert  and  Alfonso  shared  our  indignation 
at  the  dumping  of  British  ofl&cers  into  such  a  place,  for 
it  would  be  their  duty  to  stay  with  the  said  officers. 
They  protested  volubly,  but  the  gendarme  shrugged 
his  shoulders,  and  said  not  a  word  as  he  half  opened  the 
door.  Thereupon  H.,  still  far  from  calm,  grabbed  his 
shoulder,  spun  him  backward,  and  began  explaining  the 
situation  in  lurid  AustraHan. 

An  inspiration  was  given  me  by  the  sight  of  W.'s  bald 
head.  W.,  although  a  second  lieutenant,  was  a  very 
old  man — in  the  neighbourhood  of  forty,  I  believe.  He 
looked  venerable  enough  to  be  a  temperance  lecturer, 
although  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  a  first-rate  fellow. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         113 

Knowing  the  Turkish  reverence  for  the  higher  military 
ranks,  I  pointed  to  the  bald  patch  on  his  head  and  said, 
"kaimakam!*'  (colonel),  then  indicated  the  unpleas- 
ant surroundings  as  if  in  protest  against  the  indignity 
of  putting  a  colonel  in  such  a  place. 

The  policeman,  already  in  fear  of  H.'s  violence,  was 
obviously  of  opinion  that  a  kaimakaniy  even  an  English 
one,  should  have  better  quarters.  With  a  ''haidee-gitl" 
to  the  guards  he  led  us  back  into  the  rain,  and  so  to  the 
gendarmerie.  There  he  woke  the  police  officer  and 
explained  our  presence.  Fortunately  the  officer  was  too 
drowsy  to  read  our  papers  for  proof  of  the  presence  of 
a  kaimakam.  Finally,  at  his  orders,  the  gendarme  took 
us  to  a  room  on  the  first  floor  of  a  two-story  mud  build- 
ing. It  was  dirty  and  utterly  bare;  but  there,  at  any 
rate,  we  had  privacy.  We  laid  out  claims  to  floor- 
space  and  fell  asleep,  while  Alfonso  remained  on  guard 
by  the  door. 

That  Httle  room  in  a  mud  hut  was  the  home  for  ten 
days  of  seven  British  officers  and  two  Turkish  guards. 
Side  by  side,  and  with  bodies  touching  each  other,  there 
was  just  space  enough  for  eight  people  to  lie  on  the 
floor.  Already,  when  we  arrived,  one  could  sense  the 
presence  of  Cuthbert  and  Alfonso  without  seeing  or 
hearing  them;  and  with  each  washless  day  their  natu- 
ral odour  became  more  and  more  intensive. 

We  had  nothing  to  read,  and — ^worst  misfortune  of 
all — somebody  had  left  our  pack  of  playing-cards  in 
the  train.  We  wandered  round  the  walls  like  beasts  in 
a  cage. 

Nobody  in  the  village  knew  or  cared  why  we  were 
there,  or  what  was  to  happen  to  us.     We  could  only 


114         EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

surmise  that  this  was  the  punishment  for  the  plot  to 
escape  from  Damascus. 

Cuthbert  took  our  papers  into  the  village  on  the 
morning  after  arrival,  but  returned  at  midday  with  no 
information  and  many  shoulder  shrugs.  Although 
none  of  us  knew  Turkish  we  understood  enough  to 
realize  that  if  the  matter  of  obtaining  instructions  were 
left  to  this  stupid  iUiterate  we  might  stay  in  the  village 
for  ever. 

A  council  of  war  decided  that  I,  as  being  the  linguist, 
and  W.,  as  being  the  most  imposing  of  us,  with  his  bald 
head,  his  bushy  moustache,  and  his  South  African  rib- 
bons, should  drag  Cuthbert  into  the  presence  of  what- 
ever officials  we  could  find,  and  make  ourselves  a  plu- 
perfect nuisance  until  we  were  sent  away. 

** Commandant!"  I  said,  going  toward  the  door,  this 
word  being  common  to  most  languages. 

''Yassak!*'  (forbidden)  said  Cuthbert,  barring  the 
way. 

"Commandant!  Come!"  I  insisted,  brushing  him 
aside. 

He  was  ready  to  yell  for  help  when  Alfonso  came 
forward  as  an  unexpected  ally,  and  persuaded  Cuth- 
bert that  it  would  be  better  to  let  us  try  to  clear  up  the 
situation.  He  led  us  to  the  station,  where,  with  a 
French-speaking  Armenian  in  tow  as  interpreter,  we 
forced  our  way  into  the  military  commandant's  office. 

The  commandant — a  shght,  dapper  himhashi — 
claimed  to  be  desolated  at  our  unfortunate  position. 
But  what  could  he  do?  he  inquired.  Only  yesterday 
he  had  not  heard  of  our  existence,  and  then — clack! — 
we  arrived  without  warning  in  this  Anatolian  village. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  115 

Doubtless,  if  we  waited  a  week  or  so,  the  authorities 
would  send  orders  for  a  transfer  to  some  prison  camp. 
Meanwhile,  he  would  gladly  help  us  in  any  way  possible, 
except  give  us  food  or  allow  us  to  take  walks  or  move 
us  into  a  better  house  or,  in  fact,  do  anything  that  I 
suggested.  Twenty  minutes  of  argument  and  bluster 
was  necessary  before  W.  and  I  could  even  induce  the 
soft-spoken  hypocrite  to  telegraph  to  Bosanti  for  in- 
structions about  our  disposal. 

Next  day,  when  I  took  Cuthbert  to  the  station  for 
news,  no  reply  had  come.  Nor  was  there  any  message 
on  the  third  morning.  Ten  o'clock  of  the  morning 
became  known  as  **  commandant  time,"  so  that  on  the 
fourth  day  the  guards  took  the  visit  as  a  matter  of 
course,  Cuthbert  showing  his  watch  by  way  of  reminder. 
The  himhashiy  worried  by  our  importunities,  took  to 
dodging  from  his  office  when  he  saw  us  coming;  but 
always  we  waited  until  he  returned,  and  talked  in- 
sistently until  he  promised  to  send  yet  another  tele- 
gram. He  showed  surface  pohteness,  and  never  uttered 
threats;  which  in  any  case  would  have  been  more  or 
less  futile,  for  the  fighting  force  of  the  village  comprised 
but  one  police  lieutenant  and  four  gendarmes. 

We  had  arrived  hungry,  and  we  continued  hungry. 
The  law  of  supply  and  demand,  as  applied  to  eggs,  to- 
gether with  the  local  brand  of  profiteer,  was  the  cause. 
On  the  first  morning  a  bearded  peasant  visited  the  hut 
with  a  basket  of  hard-boiled  eggs,  which  he  sold  at  the 
current  rate  of  two  and  a  half  piastres  each.  Next  day, 
when  it  became  known  in  the  village  that  the  prisoners 
were  buying  eggs,  the  rate  was  four  piastres  each.  After- 
ward it  leaped  to  five,  and  next  to  seven  and  a  half 


ii6         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

piastres.  Finally,  the  supply  of  eggs  all  but  gave  out. 
It  was  then  possible  to  buy  only  one  apiece  every  morn- 
ing, whereat  we  became  more  hungry  than  ever,  for 
eggs  were  our  mainstay. 

The  commandant  had  given  reluctant  permission  for 
each  prisoner  to  buy  one  small  loaf  of  bread  a  day  at 
the  military  rate  of  two  and  a  half  piastres  a  loaf.  For 
the  rest,  we  managed  to  supplement  the  bread  and  eggs 
with  an  occasional  supply  of  figs  or  raisins  bought  in 
the  village  bazaar  as  I  returned  from  my  importuning 
of  the  military  commandant. 

These  fruits  were  shown  in  open  baskets  on  crazy 
little  stalls,  side  by  side  with  stale  bread,  bad  sausages 
and  meat,  nuts,  cotton  materials,  primitive  haberdash- 
ery, rock-salt,  rank  butter,  dusty  milk,  and  the  thou- 
sand and  one  other  articles  that  jostle  each  other  in  the 
village  bazaars  of  Anatolia.  It  being  summer,  myr- 
iads of  flies  buzzed  around  and  settled  on  the  dried 
fruits.  The  figs  and  raisins,  therefore,  could  not  be 
eaten  unless  washed  carefully  or  boiled.  Fortunately 
we  possessed  a  cooking  pot,  given  by  the  Tommies  at 
Bosanti;  and  a  ruffian  who  lived  below  us  sold  charcoal 
at  the  rate  of  ten  piastres  for  a  quantity  just  sufficient 
to  burn  for  half  an  hour. 

At  its  best,  the  crowded  room  was  so  stuflpy  as  to  be 
oppressive.  When  charcoal  fumes  were  added  to  the 
summer  closeness  the  atmosphere  became  unbearable. 
Another  drawback  that  prevented  much  cooking  was 
the  scarcity  of  water.  We  were  given  just  enough  to 
drink;  but  any  surplus,  for  washing  or  boiling  purposes, 
had  to  be  bought.  Usually  one  bottle  of  water  sufficed 
for  the  morning  toilet  of  two  of  us.     Cuthbert  and  AI- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  117 

fonso  remained  unworried  by  the  shortage.  They 
never  washed. 

Nerve-edging  irritation  will  ever  link  itself  to  an 
enforced  companionship  from  which  there  is  no  es- 
cape, however  temporary;  and  when  repulsive  sur- 
roundings are  the  miHeu  for  such  propinquity  the  ir- 
ritation is  akin  to  madness.  The  reek,  the  vermin, 
the  heat,  the  hunger,  the  confined  space,  the  dirt,  and 
the  depression  combined  to  stab  our  sensibilities,  so 
that  by  the  third  day  we  almost  hated  each  other,  in- 
dividually and  collectively. 

We  could  obtain  no  brush,  no  soap,  no  broom.  The 
little  den  grew  dirtier  and  dirtier,  the  floor  became  more 
and  more  littered,  the  guards  were  smellier  and  smeUier. 
Cramped  and  intensely  ennuied,  we  paced  in  criss-cross 
fashion  around  the  twelve  square  yards  of  floor-space, 
getting  in  each  other's  way  and  brooding  bitterly.  Of 
outdoor  exercise  there  was  only  the  daily  visit  to  the 
commandant;  and  but  one  other  man  was  allowed  to 
walk  to  the  station  with  me  each  morning. 

A  word,  a  suggestion,  or  a  nudge  was  enough  to  pro- 
voke loud  disputes.  Every  now  and  then  heated  words 
only  stopped  short  of  blows  because  all  realized  that 
the  anger  had  been  sired,  not  by  bad  feeling,  but  by 
disgusting  circumstances,  and  that  a  fight  would  be 
utterly  futile.  Worst  of  all,  as  most  prisoners  in  Turkey 
must  have  realized,  was  the  galling  subjection  to  men 
such  as  Cuthbert  and  Alfonso — semi-civiHzed,  alto- 
gether unintelligent,  and  regulating  their  actions  by  the 
crudest  of  instincts  and  axioms. 

Only  one  of  us,  old  W.,  remained  reasonable;  and 
he  had  the  greatest  cause  for  irritation.     His  wounded 


ii8         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

arm,  which  had  not  received  proper  treatment  in  the 
Turkish  hospital  at  Nazareth,  became  badly  inflamed 
as  a  result  of  the  terrible  conditions.  Yet  he  never 
once  complained,  nor  did  he  take  part  in  the  con- 
stant quarrels.  Looking  back,  I  can  reaHze  that  his 
line  example  was  the  sole  redeeming  feature  of  those 
miserable  days  in  the  mud  village. 

On  one  point  only  did  we  all  agree.  "Wish  some  of 
the  pretty  boys  who  sport  their  staff  tabs  in  Cairo  could 
be  here,"  said  H.,  and  there  followed  a  chorus  of  hearty 
assent. 

"How  about  *X'. ?"  he  continued,  mentioning  the 
name  of  one  of  the  rudest  staff"  officers  who  ever  sat  in  a 
swivel  chair.  The  five  aviators  among  us  grinned  at 
the  thought  of  having  him  to  ourselves  in  the  tiny 
room,  far  away  from  the  list  of  postings  and  from  Regu- 
lations Governing  the  Promotion  of  Officers.  This 
happy  thought  almost  reconciled  us  to  the  discomfort. 

Always  it  rained.  How  it  rained!  The  yard  below 
our  window  was  oozy  with  mud,  and  the  veiled  women 
who  were  our  neighbours  lifted  their  robes  high  as  they 
buried  their  thick  ankles  into  the  slush.  Three  of  them, 
with  an  old  man,  a  boy,  and  three  infants,  lived  in 
a  two-roomed  hovel  that  faced  our  building.  Other 
dwellers  in  their  hut  were  a  donkey,  a  dog,  and  several 
hens.  Two  of  the  women  took  ostentatious  care  to 
draw  their  yashmaks  closer  whenever  a  prisoner  showed 
himself  at  the  window;  but  the  third,  rather  less  unpre- 
possessing than  the  others,  was  less  careful  to  protect 
her  face  from  the  gaze  of  the  infidels.  Beyond  the  yard 
was  a  stretch  of  flat  mud  dotted  with  squat,  ugly  build- 
ings. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  119 

It  was  an  Australian — I  forget  which  one — ^who  dis- 
covered by  accident  an  antidote  for  the  state  of  un- 
utterable boredom  and  depression  which  was  over- 
whelming us.  He  had  lived  in  the  district  which  for  a 
time  was  the  hunting  ground  of  the  Kelly  gang,  and  he 
retold  the  vivid  melodrama,  as  told  to  him  by  older  peo- 
ple who  had  been  spectators,  of  the  bushranger  brothers 
who  wore  armour  and  robbed  so  successfully,  daringly, 
and  incredibly.  By  the  time  we  had  listened,  thrilled 
by  wonder,  to  the  tale  of  the  Kellys'  last  great  stand 
against  a  large  force  of  police,  with  a  burning  house  as 
background,  what  would  have  been  another  miserable 
evening  had  passed  in  tense  interest. 

Afterward  we  made  full  use  of  this  means  to  forget- 
fulness.  Each  afternoon  and  evening  somebody  de- 
livered himself  of  choses  vues  or  choses  entendues,  H. 
told  of  his  wanderings  in  Fiji;  R.  of  sheep-farming  in 
Queensland,  I  was  able  to  relate  some  early-war  ob- 
servations on  the  Swiss-German  frontier,  in  connection 
with  German  espionage.  Old  W.  possessed  both  the 
Queen's  and  King's  South  African  decorations,  and  for 
many  years  after  the  war  in  which  he  gained  them  had 
served  in  the  Cape  Mounted  Rifles.  His  yarns  of  dia- 
mond-field days  before  Kimberley  was  made  respectable 
by  the  De  Beers  monopoly,  of  Mafeking  and  the  Vaal, 
of  the  Boer  tribal  treks,  and  of  early  Rhodesia  filled 
many  an  empty  hour  in  the  hut  at  Alukeeshla. 

When  pre-1914  reminiscences  ran  dry,  most  phases 
of  the  war  were  described  from  personal  experience. 
M.  and  H.  had  fought  on  GalHpoH  as  troopers;  R.  had 
flown  in  the  Sinai  Desert  campaign;  W.  had  been  at 
Ypres  and  Neuve  Chapelle  in  191 5;  I  had  flown  over  the 


I20  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Somme  battles  in  the  days  before  the  Royal  Flying 
Corps  had  been  provided  with  machines  designed  for 
warfare,  instead  of  for  inherent  stability  coupled  with 
inherent  unsuitabihty  for  fighting  Fokkers,  Halber- 
stadts,  and  Rolands  on  equal  terms. 

Even  Alfonso  contributed  to  the  time-kiUing  narra- 
tives. We  were  discussing  the  war's  origin,  and  some- 
body mentioned  Sarajevo.  **Ya  Sarajevo!''  he  said, 
pointing  to  his  chest,  then  plunged  into  a  whirlpool  of 
unintelligible  talk.  He  knew  a  few  German  words,  but 
mostly  he  spoke  in  Turkish  or  in  what  was  either  Ser- 
bian or  some  Bosnian  dialect.  I  failed  to  gather  whether 
he  said  he  was  a  native  of  Bosnia  or  had  merely  lived 
there.  It  was  clear,  however,  that  he  had  been  at 
Sarajevo  when  the  Archduke  Franz  Ferdinand  was 
murdered,  and  had  seen  the  deed.  Alfonso's  excited  de- 
scription, containing  here  and  there  a  word  I  could 
understand,  reminded  me,  incongruously  enough,  of 
Marinetti's  Futurist  "verse,"  which  I  had  heard  recited 
by  the  poet  himself  at  a  London  night  club  in  191 3. 
Said  Alfonso: — 

"  Kronprinz-jahber  jabber  jabber — Sarajevo — 
Jabber  jabber  jabber — automobil — 
Jabber — PoufI  poufl  poufi  pouf!  poufi — 
Kronprinz  automobil  halt  bourn! — 
Jabber  jabber  jabber — Kronprinz  aa-ee! — 
Damen  aa-ee!  aa-ee! — jabber  jabber — aa-ee! — 
Jabber  jabber  jabber  jabber  jabber  jabber'* 
Lifting  his  arm  as  if  aiming  with  a  revolver. 
We  passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Alfonso,  together  with 
a  cigarette  and  a  fig. 
The  departure  from  the  mud  village  was  as  absurd 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         121 

as  the  rest  of  our  experiences  in  it.  On  my  ninth  visit 
to  him  the  commandant  announced  with  pride  that  he 
had  arranged  for  us  to  leave  by  the  evening  train,  and 
that  the  station-master  at  Bosanti  would  leave  an  empty 
truck  for  us. 

Twenty  minutes  before  the  train  arrived  we  trudged 
through  the  rain  to  the  station,  carrying  our  parcels  of 
disreputable  kit.  All  three  gates  leading  to  the  plat- 
form were  guarded  by  sentries,  who  offered  to  bayonet 
any  one  who  tried  to  pass  without  papers  stamped  by 
the  local  gendarmerie.  To  each  sentry  in  turn  Cuth- 
bert  explained  frantically  who  we  were  and  what  the 
commandant  had  said,  only  to  be  met  with  an  invari- 
able "  Yassak!''  and  a  fingering  of  the  rifle. 

The  himhashi  himself  was  absent,  and  so  was  the 
Armenian  interpreter — the  only  other  person,  appar- 
ently, who  knew  our  orders.  Alfonso,  despatched  to 
the  commandant's  house,  returned  with  the  news  that 
he  could  not  be  found.  We  stood  in  the  rain  puffing 
at  damp  cigarettes  and  cursing.  H.  returned  to  his  old 
refrain,  "To  hell  with  the  Turks!",  to  the  great  wonder 
of  the  tatterdemalion  men  and  boys  gathered  round  us. 

When  the  train  steamed  away  from  Alukeeshla,  tak- 
ing, no  doubt,  the  empty  truck  reserved  for  us,  we 
startled  the  guards  and  sentries  with  yells  of  uncon- 
trollable laughter. 

M.  and  I  opened  next  morning's  visit  to  the  himhashi 
with  bitter  protests,  but  had  to  end  it  in  helpless  ac- 
quiescence before  his  suave  lies.  He  had  given  strict 
orders  that  the  sentries  were  to  let  us  pass,  he  pretended, 
and  they  would  be  punished  severely  for  their  failure  to 
do  so.     Meanwhile,  he  was  charmed  that  we  were  to 


122         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

accept  the  hospitality  of  the  village  for  one  day  longer. 
He  himself  would  be  present  to  see  us  off  by  the  next 
train  that  same  evening. 

For  once  the  commandant  kept  his  promise.  He  led 
us  to  the  station  himself.  But  this  time  no  accommo- 
dation had  been  provided  for  us  on  the  train.  The 
trucks  were  full  of  Germans,  the  first-  and  second-class 
carriages  of  Turkish  officers,  the  third-class  carriages  of 
Turkish  soldiers.  As  it  would  be  difficult  to  crowd  the 
Turkish  officers  and  impossible  to  dislodge  any  Germans, 
the  only  alternative  was  to  clear  out  some  of  the  Turkish 
privates. 

The  himhashi  selected  a  carriage,  entered  it,  and 
ordered  its  occupants  to  descend  to  the  platform.  There 
were  only  nine  of  us,  with  the  guards,  while  the  soldiers 
numbered  more  than  forty.  Yet  the  himhashi  turned 
them  all  out.  He  hurled  their  packs  through  the  open 
windows,  and  by  candlelight  drove  them  before  him  to 
the  doorway.  Some,  who  were  reluctant  to  leave,  he 
struck.  It  was  astonishing  to  see  the  little  man  smack- 
ing and  kicking  burly  brutes  twice  his  size;  though  he 
knew  well  that  they  would  never  dare  to  hit  back. 

When  the  carriage  was  quite  empty  he  took  us  inside 
and  placed  us  in  a  corner.  The  Turkish  rabble,  swear- 
ing and  grumbling,  returned  with  their  packs  and  their 
rifles,  and  scowled  at  us  as  they  packed  themselves  into 
the  remaining  seats.  The  whole  matter  could  have 
been  arranged,  with  a  twentieth  of  the  fuss,  by  merely 
moving  nine  Turks  from  one  end  of  the  carriage  to  the 
other. 

"Good?"  asked  the  commandant,  proudly,  after  we 
were  seated.     . 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         123 

"Magnificent!"  I  replied,  while  we  tried  hard  not 
to  let  our  self-control  be  blown  over  by  gusts  of  laugh- 
ter. 

"Then,  au  revoir,  my  friend." 

"Adieu,  mister  the  commandant." 

He  strutted  down  the  platform;  and  we  passed  from 
Alukeeshla  to  whatever  weird  experiences  might  be 
waiting  for  us  elsewhere. 


This  chapter  is  but  an  amplification  of  an  inscription 
signed  by  H.  and  myself  before  we  left  our  mud  home. 
When  passing  toward  Alukeeshla  from  the  station, 
take  the  second  turning  to  the  right  beyond  the  gen- 
darmerie, then  the  first  to  the  left,  and  enter  the  fifth 
house  in  a  row  of  buildings  that  stare  at  you  from  the 
bottom  of  a  blind  alley.  Climb  some  rickety  stairs  to 
the  back  room  on  the  first  floor,  and  you  may  still 
find  these  words  on  one  of  the  walls : 

"In  memory  of  some  bad  days  and  good  yarns,  spent 
and  told  in  this  dirty  room  of  this  verminous  hut  in  this 
God-forsaken  village.  -  To  Hell  with  the  Turks!" 


CHAPTER  VII 

IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  BLACK  ROCK 

Moored  under  a  willow  tree,  we  were  clearing  what 
was  left  of  the  cold  chicken  and  salad  from  the  middle 
of  a  punt.  I  filled  the  Chambertin  bottle  with  water 
and  dropped  it  overboard.  It  plashed  and  sank  noise- 
lessly to  the  bottom  of  the  Thames.  From  the  far 
side  of  our  island  came  the  metaUic  strains  of  a  gramo- 
phone, made  less  blatant  by  the  soft  atmosphere  of  the 
river.  A  passing  punt-pole  clacked,  rose  from  the  sur- 
face, stabbed  the  water  and  clacked  again.  FHes 
danced  from  the  hot  sunlight  into  the  shade  of  the  wil- 
low, and  hovered  over  the  remains  of  our  lunch.  I 
composed  the  cushions  and  lay  down,  opposite  PhylHs. 

But  the  cushions  became  harder  and  harder,  and  the 
breeze  merged  gradually  into  a  stuffy,  dark  oppressive- 
ness. I  opened  my  eyes,  and  sat  up.  The  head  cush- 
ion, it  appeared,  was  a  sackful  of  kit,  my  white  flannels 
were  a  uniform  in  creased  and  dirtied  khaki,  PhylHs 
was  Alfonso  the  Turkish  guard,  and  the  Thames  the 
military  baths  at  Afion-kara-Hissar,  in  the  centre  of 
AnatoHa. 

Some  ragged  Turks  arrived  through  the  stone  passage 
that  led  to  the  hot  room,  and  began  undressing.  Cuth- 
bert  was  talking  to  the  bath  attendant,  while  Alfonso 
lay  opposite  me  and  snored.    H.  and  W.  also  snored 

124 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  125 

in  dissonant  notes.  R.  was  sorting  out  his  kit.  The 
rest  of  the  party  still  slumbered  silently,  stretched  out 
in  twisted  attitudes  on  the  stone  floor. 

Then  I  remembered  how  we  were  dragged  from 
the  train  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  and  had 
wandered  through  the  streets  of  Afion-kara-Hissar, 
looking  for  the  prison  camp.  Finding  it  closed  to  night 
arrivals,  Cuthbert  and  Alfonso  led  us  to  the  Madrissah 
hammam,  in  the  courtyard  of  a  mosque.  Weary  with 
want  of  sleep  and  the  hardships  of  a  long  journey,  we 
had  slept  for  several  hours  on  the  floor  of  the  outer  bath- 
room. 

Only  R.  had  risked  taking  oflFhis  boots;  and  these  had 
evidently  disappeared,  for  as  he  searched  his  loud  curses 
echoed  from  the  domed  roof.  As  was  to  be  expected, 
all  the  Turks  in  the  room  disclaimed  volubly  any  knowl- 
edge of  the  missing  boots,  so  that  when  we  moved  to 
the  prisoners'  camp  R.  clattered  along  the  streets  in  a 
pair  of  wooden  sandals  borrowed  from  the  bath  at- 
tendant. 

A  Turkish  officer  met  us  at  the  barrier  which  divided 
the  street  of  prison-houses  from  the  rest  of  the  town, 
and  sent  us  to  meet  the  British  adjutant  of  the  camp. 
Cuthbert  and  Alfonso  waved  a  good-humoured  fare- 
well and  disappeared.  With  them  they  took  our  cook- 
ing pots — although  we  did  not  discover  this  fact  until 
later  in  the  day.  By  that  time  they  had  left  Afion- 
kara-Hissar.  We  swore  long  and  loud  at  the  memory 
of  the  two  guards,  for  in  those  days  any  sort  of  a  cook- 
ing utensil  was  in  Turkey  worth  at  least  two  pounds. 

Passing  up  the  narrow  street  we  were  greeted  by 
groups  of  weirdly  clothed  Britishers.     Some  wore  torn 


126         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

and  creased  uniforms  and  a  civilian  cap  or  a  much- 
dented  billycock;  some  a  military  hat  and  ill-fitting 
suits  of  shoddy  mufti;  some  were  in  khaki  shorts  sur- 
mounted by  shirts  of  violent  colours  open  at  the  neck; 
some  wore  heavy  boots,  some  wore  bedroom  slippers, 
some  wore  sandals. 

Many  of  them  were  survivors  of  the  Kut-el-Amara 
garrison  and  had  been  prisoners  in  Turkey  for  two  and 
a  half  years.  Their  uniforms  had  long  since  become 
scarecrow  relics  of  better  days,  since  when  they  had 
depended  for  clothing  on  the  suppHes  forwarded  by  the 
Dutch  Legation  at  Constantinople.  The  productions 
of  the  Turkish  tailors  and  shirt-makers,  as  issued  to  the 
prisoners  at  Afion,  were  entertaining  but  rather  anarchic. 

Afion-kara-Hissar  contained  the  largest  prison- 
camp  in  Turkey,  although  there  were  others  at  Yozgad, 
Broussa  and  Geddos — the  last-named  being  for  the 
fifty  or  sixty  of  his  Majesty's  officers  who  had  been 
persuaded  to  give  parole  not  to  attempt  an  escape. 
When  the  first  batch  of  British  officers  arrived  at  Afion 
the  Turks  turned  some  Armenian  famihes  out  of  their 
homes,  confiscated  the  furniture,  and  told  the  captives 
from  the  Dardanelles  and  Mesopotamia  that  they  were 
to  live  in  the  empty  houses. 

"Beds?  Furniture?"  said  the  commandant.  "We 
have  none,  and  it  is  impossible  to  supply  any." 

"Food?"  he  said  in  reply  to  another  demand.  "It  is 
well  known  that  all  British  officers  are  rich.  You  have 
money  enough  to  buy  food  for  yourselves." 

And  so  it  had  to  be.  At  first  the  British  officers 
lived  on  their  pay  as  captives;  which,  according  to  rank, 
was  at  the  rate  of  seven  to  ten  Turkish  pounds  a  month. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  127 

But  food  prices  soon  expanded  to  extraordinary  pro- 
portions, while  the  exchange  value  of  the  Turkish 
pound  continued  to  decrease.  By  the  beginning  of 
1918  it  was  worth  less  than  two  and  a  half  dollars;  while 
sugar,  for  example,  was  four  dollars  a  pound.  Tea  was 
fifty  dollars  a  pound,  and  real  coffee  was  unobtainable. 
Under  these  conditions,  it  became  almost  impossible  to 
obtain  even  a  bare  subsistence  on  seven  Turkish  pounds 
a  month  without  outside  help.  The  Dutch  Legation, 
therefore,  supplemented  each  captive  officer^s  pay  to 
the  extent  of  five,  then  fifteen,  Turkish  pounds  a  month, 
taken  from  the  Red  Cross  funds  at  their  disposal. 

Even  thus  the  food  difficulties  could  not  have  been 
solved  without  the  help  of  parcels  from  home.  These 
arrived  either  seven  or  eight  months  after  they  left 
England,  or  never.  Many  were  delivered  only  after  the 
Turks  had  looted  from  them  such  articles  as  were  scarce, 
including  boots,  clothes,  and  good  tobacco.  Letters 
from  England  needed  from  two  to  five  months  for  transit. 

The  lack  of  furniture  was  overcome  by  amateur 
carpentry.  With  string,  nails,  and  planks  of  wood  each 
newly  arrived  prisoner  constructed  a  bed,  a  table,  and 
a  chair.  Profiteers  in  the  bazaar  naturally  took  advan- 
tage of  the  demand  for  wood,  and,  by  the  time  of  which 
I  write,  the  price  of  it  had  soared  to  two  Turkish  pounds 
a  plank. 

Besides  the  officers  there  were  at  Afion  about  two 
hundred  Tommies  shut  up  in  a  Greek  church.  Their 
daily  rations  from  the  Turks  were  one  small  loaf  of 
bad  bread  and  one  basin  of  thin  soup.  For  the  rest, 
they  existed  on  the  tinned  food  which  they  received 
from  time  to  time  in  parcels. 


128  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

As  for  the  Russian  soldiers,  who  were  herded  into 
the  Madrissah  buildings,  they  were  literally  starving, 
and  most  of  them  had  sold  part  of  their  clothing  to  buy 
extra  food.  Weak  and  ragged,  they  passed  the  time 
in  walking  round  and  round  the  courtyard.  During 
the  bitter  months  of  winter  scores  of  them  died  from 
hunger  and  cold. 

Conditions  in  the  prison  camp  varied  according  to 
the  character  of  whoever  happened  to  be  the  Turkish 
commandant.  For  a  time  the  officer  in  charge  was  one 
Muslum  Bey,  who  was  reported  to  have  committed 
several  executions  for  Enver  Pasha  during  the  turbulent 
days  of  the  Young  Turk  coup  d'etat  in  1908.  He  was 
a  brute,  a  swindler,  and  a  degenerate,  and  during  his 
reign  unspeakable  outrages  were  committed.  He  him- 
self gave  a  Russian  officer  who  had  committed  some 
minor  offence  more  than  a  hundred  strokes  of  the  bas- 
tinado. When  his  arm  was  tired  he  made  his  sergeant- 
major  continue  the  flogging  until  the  Russian  fainted. 
The  unconscious  body  of  the  victim  was  then  thrown 
into  a  cellar,  where  a  part  of  his  face  was  burned  by 
contact  with  quick-lime. 

Muslum  Bey  not  only  stole  food  parcels  from  Eng- 
land but  made  a  practice  of  deducting  part  of  the 
monthly  pay  which  helped  to  procure  for  the  British 
Tommies  a  bare  existence.  In  addition,  he  made  an 
arrangement  with  bazaar  traders  whereby  a  monopoly 
in  certain  articles  of  food  came  into  being,  so  that  the 
prisoners  had  to  pay  incredible  prices,  or  go  hungry. 

It  was  not  until  the  visit  of  a  Swiss  Commission  that 
was  investigating  the  prison-camps  of  Turkey  that  the 
British  officers  at  Afion-kara-Hissar  heard  of  Muslum 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         129 

Bey*s  worst  outrage.  The  brutal  commandant  had 
taken  great  care  that  there  should  be  no  communica- 
tion between  the  captive  officers  and  the  captive  men, 
and  severe  punishment  was  inflicted  if  a  Tommy  tried 
to  speak  with  a  British  officer  whom  he  chanced  to  pass 
in  the  street.  Scenting  that  something  was  wrong  the 
officers  induced  members  of  the  Swiss  Commission  to 
take  with  them  the  senior  British  doctor  when  they 
visited  the  Tommies  in  the  Greek  Church.  Almost 
the  first  words  that  Colonel  B.,  the  doctor  in  question, 
heard  on  entering  the  building  were  the  equivalent  of 
"Fve  been  outraged,  sir."  He  then  learned  the  story 
of  how  two  British  soldiers,  thrown  into  jail  for  some 
trivial  offence,  had  been  forcibly  outraged,  first  by  the 
commandant  and  then  by  his  sergeant-major. 

The  Swiss  Commission  itself  was  not  immune  from 
Muslum  Bey's  criminality.  An  Australian  officer  took 
a  member  of  it  aside,  and  told  him  the  full  story  of  the 
awful  death-march  from  Kut-el-Amara,  on  which  the  cap- 
tured garrison,  already  reduced  by  hunger,  were  forced 
to  trek  over  800  miles  of  desert  and  mountain,  being  left 
to  die  in  the  scorching  sun  if  they  fell  out  owing  to  weak- 
ness— a  death-march  which  is  responsible  for  the  fact 
that  less  than  25  per  cent,  of  the  men  captured  at  Kut- 
el-Amara  are  alive  to-day. 

"Yes,  we  know  all  about  it,"  said  the  Swiss,  "and 
we  had  it  in  our  notes.  But  most  of  our  papers  were 
stolen  the  other  day." 

When  I  reached  Afion,  in  May,  191 8,  the  conditions 
had  improved.  As  a  result  of  a  secret  report  by  the 
senior  British  officer,  smuggled  to  the  headquarters  at 
Constantinople  of  the  Ottoman  Red  Crescent,  Muslum 


130         EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

Bey  had  been  removed  from  his  position  and  impris- 
oned. He  was  put  on  trial  for  his  many  crimes;  but 
owing  to  baksheesh  and  to  political  protection  the  sen- 
tence was  but  a  few  months'  imprisonment.  He  had 
already  served  this  period  while  awaiting  trial,  and  was 
therefore  released  immediately  after  sentence.  He  went 
into  business  as  a  shopkeeper,  and  sold  among  other 
things  tinned  food  bearing  British  labels — tinned  food 
of  the  kind  that  anxious  people  in  England  and  India 
lovingly  bought  and  lovingly  packed  for  their  husbands, 
sons,  and  relatives  who  were  prisoners  of  war. 

Meanwhile,  although  Muslum  Bey  had  been  given 
only  the  travesty  of  a  punishment  by  the  Turkish 
judges,  instructions  were  sent  from  the  Turkish  War  Office 
that  life  at  the  prison-camps  of  Afion-kara-Hissar  was 
to  be  made  more  pleasant.  We  were,  for  example, 
allowed  the  run  of  a  portion  of  the  hillside.  In  cold 
print  such  a  concession  seems  unimportant  enough, 
but  to  men  who  had  become  staled  and  unspeakably 
bored  by  months  of  captivity  during  which  their  only 
exercise  was  to  walk  up  and  down  a  narrow  street,  it 
was  a  godsend.  Cricket  and  football  matches  were  also 
allowed,  and  two  or  three  times  a  week  long  walks  were 
arranged. 

Members  of  these  walking  parties  would  study  the 
flat  plain  that  surrounded  Afion-kara-Hissar  and  the 
succession  of  hill-ranges  beyond  it,  and  would  dream  of 
an  escape  to  some  point  on  the  coast. 

From  this  town  in  the  centre  of  Anatolia,  however, 
escape  seemed  an  impossibihty,  for  the  nearest  point 
of  the  coast  was  150  miles  distant,  and  the  intervening 
country,  wild  and  almost  trackless,  was  full  of  brigands 


^  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  131 

and  starving  outlaws  of  every  description,  who  would 
cheerfully  kill  a  chance  traveller  for  a  pair  of  boots,  a 
loaf  of  bread,  or  merely  for  practice.  In  any  case,  a 
tramp  to  the  coast  must  extend  over  at  least  five  weeks, 
and  it  was  difficult  to  see  how  food  for  this  long  period 
could  be  carried. 

Several  officers  were  carrying  on  a  secret  correspond- 
ence with  friends  in  England  by  means  of  code,  and 
were  trying  to  prepare  wild  schemes  whereby  a  boat 
was  to  be  waiting  for  them  at  some  specified  part  of  the 
coastline  between  specified  dates,  or  whereby  an  aero- 
plane was  to  pick  them  up  during  the  night.  Most  of  us 
gave  up  the  idea  of  making  a  dash  for  freedom  from 
Afion,  and  schemed  to  be  sent  to  Constantinople,  where 
the  chances  of  success  would  be  greater. 

When  a  recently  captured  prisoner  first  accepted 
the  fact  that  escape  from  Afion-kara-Hissar  was  im- 
possible, and  when  the  monotony  of  captivity  had  per- 
meated him,  he  would  as  a  rule  pass  through  a  period 
of  melancholia  and  the  deepest  depression.  A  black 
rock — huge,  gaunt,  and  forbidding — overshadowed  the 
little  town  from  its  height  of  2,000  feet  of  almost  sheer 
precipice.  For  hours  at  a  time  one  would  stare  at  its 
bare  blackness,  and  at  the  crumbHng  ruins  of  the  for- 
tress, built  by  the  Seljak  Turks,  which  topped  the  rock; 
and  the  blackness  and  bareness  would  enter  into  one's 
soul  and  plunge  one  into  a  swirling  vortex  of  morbid 
thoughts.  For  me  the  rock  was  a  symbol  of  captivity — 
bleak,  inexorable,  and  unrelenting. 

Yet,  as  a  rule,  the  period  of  melancholia  soon  passed, 
and  gave  place  to  resigned  acceptance  of  the  trivial 
and  monotonous  daily  round  of  prison  life.     This  more 


132  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

or  less  sane  view  of  things  was  only  made  possible  by 
improvised  distractions,  by  reading,  and  by  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  thousand-and-one  rumours  that  spread 
from  the  bazaars.  Time  and  again  it  would  be  whis- 
pered by  some  Greek  trader  that  Talaat  Pasha  was 
negotiating  a  separate  peace  and  had  agreed  to  open 
the  Dardanelles,  or  that  war  was  about  to  be  declared 
between  Turkey  and  Bulgaria  as  a  result  of  the  Dob- 
rudja  dispute,  or  that  Enver  Pasha  had  been  assassi- 
nated, or  that  the  Sultan  was  determined  to  rid  himself 
of  the  Young  Turk  government.  We  knew  well  that 
these  reports  were  untrue  and  scarce  worth  even  the 
attention  of  bitter  laughter;  but  since  we  wanted  them 
to  be  true  they  would  be  discussed  with  gravity  over 
the  mess-tables  until  the  next  batch  of  newspapers 
proved  their  falsity. 

The  most  useful  means  to  forgetfulness  was  the  camp 
library.  Many  hundreds  of  books  were  sent  to  the 
prison-camps  of  Turkey  by  various  societies  and  individ- 
ual sympathizers  in  England.  It  was  at  Afion-kara- 
Hissar  that  I  first  found  the  courage  and  concentration 
necessary  to  read  through  each  and  every  consecutive 
volume  of  Gibbon.  "The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire,"  by  the  way,  was  probably  more  in 
demand  than  anything  else  in  the  library;  for  the  state 
of  mind  induced  by  captivity  needed  something  more 
solid  and  satisfying  than  the  best  yeller-seller.  Great 
favourites,  too,  were  books  of  Eastern  travel  and  ad- 
venture— in  particular  the  works  of  Burton  and  La- 
martine,  the  "Travels  of  Marco  Polo  the  Venetian,"  and 
Morier*s"HajjiBaba."  A  copy  of  Plutarch's  "Lives"  also 
received  the  attention  of  much  wear  and  tear.     For  the 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         133 

rest,  many  a  time  have  I  thanked  the  gods  for  Kipling; 
but  never  more  heartily  than  when  lying  on  the  hillside 
at  Afion  and  forgetting  the  Black  Rock  and  all  that  it 
stood  for  in  the  company  of  Kim  the  lovable,  Lalun  the 
lovely,  and  The  Man  Who  Would  Be  King. 

Away  from  the  ragtime  blare  and  rush  of  modern 
life  this  isolation  in  a  small  town  of  a  semi-civilized 
province  gave  the  prisoners  time  and  opportunity  to 
"find"  themselves,  so  that  for  the  first  time  in  their 
lives  many  began  to  think  individually,  instead  of  ac- 
cepting conventional  opinions  at  second  hand.  At 
least  one  book  of  promise  was  written  at  Afion-kara- 
Hissar,  and  four  others  have  found  publication.  Several 
excellent  poems  were  born  there  amid  a  welter  of  verse 
that  was  deathless  because  lifeless.  Plays,  paintings, 
and  songs  were  produced  in  profusion.  One  man,  an 
Australian,  made  a  very  thorough  study  of  the  ancient 
civilizations  of  the  Middle  East,  and  could  supply  ac- 
curate information,  without  reference  to  a  book,  about 
every  phase  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh, 
of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  of  the  Chaldeans  and  As- 
syrians, with  the  extent  and  location  and  customs  of 
the  various  empires.  Yet  he  confessed  that  three  years 
earlier,  at  a  time  when  he  was  flying  in  Mesopotamia, 
he  had  no  more  interest  in  Babylon  than  in  Nashville, 
Tennessee. 

Apart,  however,  from  the  quality  of  this  work  pour 
passer  le  tempSy  the  very  fact  that  so  many  should  ad- 
venture into  the  unknown  country  of  creative  effort 
proved  that,  when  away  from  the  preoccupations  of  an 
artificial  social  system,  even  the  average  Englishman 
turned  instinctively  to  learning  and  the  arts. 


134         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Meanwhile,  many  a  lively  performance  was  given 
in  the  garden  which  served  as  open-air  theatre,  with 
plays  written  and  songs  composed  by  people  who,  be- 
fore being  subjected  to  the  isolation  of  captivity,  had 
occupied  themselves  solely  with  soldiering  or  business. 
Comic  relief  also  was  provided  by  two  youthful  subal- 
terns who  set  up  shop  as  earnest-minded  philosophers, 
and  on  a  foundation  of  Nietzsche,  Wilde,  and  Shaw  built 
a  gargoyled  edifice  that  was  perverted  and  extrava- 
gantly young,  but  withal  vastly  entertaining. 

The  social  life  of  the  camp  was  complex.  Despite 
the  absence  of  the  female  of  the  species,  it  resembled 
in  many  ways  that  of  a  suburb  in  some  wealthy  city  of 
the  Midlands.  As  was  to  be  expected  among  a  hun- 
dred people  confined  in  two  small  streets,  innumerable 
cliques  were  formed,  from  each  of  which  ripples  of 
gossip  spread  outward  until  they  merged  into  and  were 
overwhelmed  by  another  eddy  of  gossip.  Starting  in 
the  morning  from  a  small  room  in  a  wooden  house  an 
item  of  scandal  would,  by  the  evening,  have  reached  every 
room  of  thirty  other  houses — how  X.  had  received 
a  pair  of  pyjamas  for  nothing  from  the  Red  Cross  supply 
and  sold  them  for  three  liras;  how  Y.  had  climbed 
over  several  roofs  at  night-time  and,  in  the  shadow  of 
a  chimney,  met  that  Armenian  girl  with  the  large 
eyes;  how  Z.  had  begun  to  smoke  opium.  Opium,  by 
the  way,  could  be  had  in  plenty.  The  production  of  it 
was  the  chief  industry  of  Afion-kara-Hissar  C^afion" 
is  Turkish  for  "poppy,"  ^^kara  hissar"  being  "black 
rock").  Enormous  poppy-fields  spread  all  round  the 
town  in  vivid  splashes  of  red  and  white. 

Yet  with  all  the  trivial  gossip  and  light  scandal  there 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  135 

was  a  very  real  sense  of  comradeship.  If  any  man  were 
sick  the  remainder  would  fall  over  each  other  in  their 
desire  to  be  of  help.  If  any  house  were  short  of  wood 
during  the  bitter  months  of  winter  its  inmates  could  al- 
ways borrow  from  such  as  had  enough  and  to  spare.  A 
new  prisoner,  possessing  no  money  and  a  minimum  of 
clothes — as  was  the  case  with  most  of  us — ^would  find 
himself  overwhelmed  by  loans  and  gifts. 

When  I  was  at  Afion  the  camp  was  very  much  pre- 
occupied with  rumours  of  a  forthcoming  exchange  of 
sick  prisoners  between  Great  Britain  and  Turkey. 
Scores  of  intrigues  centred  round  the  room  of  Major 
H.,  then  senior  medical  officer  among  the  British;  for 
it  would  be  his  task  to  examine  the  ''unfit"  before  de- 
ciding which  were  to  be  sent  for  further  and  final  ex- 
aminations by  Turkish  medical  boards.  Scarcely  a 
man  failed  to  produce  an  ailment.  Wounds  that  had 
healed  years  before  were  bandaged  and  treated  with 
unnecessary  care.  Limps  of  every  description  were  to 
be  seen  in  the  street.  Some  claimed  to  be  deaf.  Others 
allowed  their  gray  hairs  to  grow  long,  and  continued 
to  express  an  opinion  that  the  old  and  feeble  should  be 
sent  home  first.  Such  as  could  produce  neither  old 
age  nor  some  physical  ailment  discussed  loss  of  memory 
and  mental  trouble. 

All  day  long  Major  H.  examined  the  claimants, 
smiled  to  himself,  and  compiled  lists.  These,  I  imagine, 
must  have  been  subdivided  something  like  this — (a) 
those  who  suffered  from  real  injuries  or  illnesses;  (b) 
those  who  were  middle-aged,  and  had  minor  ailments; 

(c)  those  who  were  young,  and  had  minor  ailments; 

(d)  those  who  might  conceivably  have  minor  ailments 


136         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

but  could  supply  no  visible  symptoms;  (e)  those  who 
had  nothing  the  matter  with  them,  but  were  good  liars, 
and  as  such  might  convince  the  Turks;  (f)  those  who 
were  not  only  healthy,  but  bad  liars. 

Besides  the  British  there  were  at  Afion  about  a  hun- 
dred Russian  officers;  for  although  the  peace  of  Brest- 
Litovsk  had  been  signed  and  Russia  was  at  peace  with 
Germany,  the  Russian  was  the  traditional  enemy  of  the 
Turk,  and  none  knew  when  war  might  break  out  be- 
tween Turkey  and  the  small  states  which  had  sprung 
up  in  the  Caucasus.  With  no  money,  no  Red  Cross 
supplies,  no  means  of  communicating  with  their  rela- 
tives, and  no  knowledge  of  whether  these  relatives  had 
survived  the  Bolshevist  terror,  the  Russian  officers 
among  us  lived  miserably,  and  were  largely  dependent 
upon  the  charity  of  British  fellow-captives.  In  return 
they  taught  some  of  us  a  smattering  of  Russian,  and 
helped  to  pass  the  time  with  their  interminable  but 
entertaining  talk.  They  also  provided  a  really  fine  choir, 
with  Captain  Korniloff,  a  cousin  of  the  famous  general, 
as  one  of  its  leading  members.  Besides  ourselves,  its 
audience,  when  the  choir  sang  on  the  hillside,  never 
failed  to  include  the  dark-haired  Armenian  girls — the 
only  Armenians  left  in  the  town — ^who  had  been  saved 
from  the  exodus  and  massacres  of  191 5-16  that  they 
might  serve  the  pleasures  of  Turkish  officers  and  offi- 
cials. They  listened  from  a  distance,  and  looked  their 
sympathy,  as  we  looked  ours. 

At  the  beginning  of  each  month,  when  the  funds 
arrived  from  Constantinople,  there  would  be  a  suc- 
cession of  birthday  parties.  On  these  occasions  the 
rule  was  relaxed  whereby  each  prisoner  must  remain  in 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  137 

his  own  house  after  seven  o'clock.  The  Turks  rever- 
ence birthdays,  and  by  playing  upon  this  fact  permis- 
sion would  be  obtained  to  celebrate  in  a  friend's 
room.  It  was  necessary  to  claim  birthdays  in  rotation, 
for  even  the  Turks  might  have  disbelieved  if  the 
same  prisoner  had  three  of  them  in  three  successive 
months. 

I  shall  always  remember  a  party  given  on  the  evening 
of  my  arrival  by  White,  an  Australian  aviator  captured 
in  the  early  days  of  the  Mesopotamian  campaign.  It 
was  my  first  introduction  to  drak,  a  kind  of  a  tenth- 
rate  absinthe,  which,  excepting  some  incredibly  bad 
brandy,  was  then  the  only  alcoholic  stimulant  to  be 
bought  in  Anatolia.  Finding  it  far  stronger  than  it 
seemed,  I  had  almost  forgotten  captivity  and  its  mis- 
eries in  an  unreal  enjoyment  of  the  songs,  the  stories, 
and  the  general  hilarity — hilarity  which  was  merely  a 
cloak  for  forgetfulness.  And  then,  amid  the  fumes 
and  the  shouting,  there  recurred  insistently  the  thought 
of  escape.  I  spoke  of  it  to  the  man  nearest  me,  a  short 
figure  in  a  faded  military  overcoat,  Turkish  slippers, 
and  an  eyeglass. 

"Not  so  loud,"  he  warned.  "You  can't  trust  half 
these  Russians.     Come  over  into  the  corner." 

Yeats-Brown,  the  speaker,  began  to  suggest  advice 
about  how  best  to  escape.  One's  only  chance,  he  de- 
clared, was  to  get  to  Constantinople.  He  himself 
claimed  nose  trouble,  and  having  cultivated  the  friend- 
ship of  the  local  Turkish  doctor,  he  was  to  be  sent  for 
treatment  to  a  hospital  in  the  capital.  If  I  could  in- 
vent some  plausible  ailment  he  would  persuade  the 
Turkish  doctor  to  use  his  influence  on  my  behalf.  Mean- 


138         EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

while,  we  would  have  further  talks  and  discuss  plans. 
The  great  thing  was  to  get  to  Constantinople. 

Although  I  did  not  know  it  at  the  time  there  were 
in  that  bare  room  several  men  with  whom,  in  a  few 
weeks'  time,  I  was  to  be  involved  in  a  succession  of 
extraordinary  intrigues  and  adventures,  when  we  should 
have  met  again  in  Constantinople.  There  was  the  host 
himself — Captain  White — ^who  later  on  joined  me  in 
a  thousand-mile  journey,  through  Russia  and  Bulgaria, 
to  freedom;  there  was  Captain  Yeats-Brown,  who  for 
weeks  went  about  an  enemy  capital  disguised  as  a  girl; 
there  was  Paul,  who  was  to  escape  three  times,  be 
recaptured  twice,  and  finally  to  marry  the  English  lady 
who  helped  him;  there  was  Prince  Constantine  AvalofF, 
a  Russian  colonel,  who  was  to  help  us  all  by  acting  as 
go-between;  there  was  Lieutenant  Vladimir  Wilkowsky, 
a  Polish  aviator,  whom  I  was  to  see  again  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Black  Sea,  in  German-occupied  Odessa. 
Meanwhile,  the  drak  bottle  passed  round,  and  the  songs 
grew  louder  and  wilder,  until  daylight  broke  up  the 
party  and  we  returned  to  our  rough,  hand-made  beds. 

It  now  became  my  aim  in  life  to  reach  Constanti- 
nople. My  injuries  had  healed,  and  at  a  moment's 
notice  I  could  produce  no  convincing  illness.  I  de- 
cided, therefore,  on  some  form  of  mental  trouble.  Yeats- 
Brown  had  already  mentioned  me  to  his  friend  the 
Turkish  doctor;  and  I  was  to  have  been  examined,  when 
yet  again  the  unexpected  happened.  It  was  ordered 
by  the  Ministry  of  War  that  the  seven  of  us  who  left 
Damascus  together  were  to  be  forwarded  to  Constanti- 
nople, presumably  for  interrogation. 

I  took  with  me  high  hopes  and  the  addresses  of  vari- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  139 

ous  civilians  in  the  capital  who  might  be  of  help.  As 
we  entrained,  and  moved  westward  through  the  poppy- 
fields,  the  Black  Rock — ^which  more  than  ever  seemed 
a  symbol  of  the  blackness  and  menace  which  over- 
shadowed prisoners  in  this  half-barbaric  country — 
loomed  gigantic  and  forbidding,  so  that  we  were  thank- 
ful when  the  railway  wound  round  a  hill  and  shut  it 
from  sight.  I  vowed  to  myself  that  never  again  would 
I  return  to  the  monotonous  death-in-life  of  the  prison 
camp  at  its  foot,  on  the  fringe  of  the  squalid  town  of 
Afion-kara-Hissar. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONSTANTINOPLE;   AND   HOW  TO   BECOME   MAD 

Your  best  card/'  said  Pappas  EfFendi,  "is  vertige. 
Melancholia  and  loss  of  memory  and  nervous  break- 
down and  all  that'll  be  helpful,  but  play  up  vertige  for 
all  you're  worth.  It  can  mean  anything.  Besides, 
it's  impressive." 

Pappas  EfFendi  was  a  Roman  Catholic  chaplain, 
waiting  at  Psamatia  (a  suburb  of  Constantinople)  to  be 
exchanged  as  a  sick  prisoner  of  war.  He  and  I  were 
discussing  how  best  I  could  be  admitted  to  hospital, 
so  as  to  remain  in  the  capital.  As  my  injuries  had  healed, 
and  I  could  conjure  up  no  physical  disorder,  I  decided 
to  claim,  therefore,  that  as  a  result  of  the  aeroplane 
crash  in  Palestine  I  suffered  from  nervous  and  mental 
troubles. 

For  the  few  British  officers  at  Psamatia  the  accom- 
modation was  fair  to  very  fair;  but  for  the  soldiers  of 
many  nationalities  in  the  same  camp,  life  must  have 
been  dreadful.  Hundreds  of  them — Britishers,  In- 
dians, Russians,  Roumanians,  and  Serbs — ^were  herded 
together  into  filthy,  crowded  outhouses  and  sheds. 
They  were  allowed  outside  them  only  twice  a  day,  when 
they  walked  backward  and  forward,  forward  and 
backward  across  the  yard,  by  way  of  exercise.  Most 
of  them  had  done  nothing  else  for  months.     Their 

140 


EASTERN  NIGHTS  AND— FLIGHTS  141 

daily  rations  were  the  usual  loaf  of  bread  and  basin  of 
unnourishing  soup. 

For  the  Britishers  and  Indians  conditions  were  not  so 
bad;  because  they  received  occasional  food  parcels  from 
home,  and  a  small  monthly  remittance  from  the  Red 
Cross.  The  Russians,  Roumanians,  and  Serbs  had 
neither  money  nor  parcels.  Some  died  of  weakness, 
some  sold  half  their  clothing  to  buy  food,  and  in  conse- 
quence died  of  cold  during  the  bitter  winters.  The 
Tommies  were  also  better  off  in  that  they  were  supplied 
with  clothes  and  boots  by  the  Dutch  Legation,  which 
administered  the  Red  Cross  funds.  Prisoners  of  other 
nationalities  walked  about  gaunt  and  in  tatters.  The 
British  gave  them  whatever  food  and  tobacco  could  be 
spared  on  parcel-days,  but  even  so  they  could  often  be 
seen  scrambHng  for  a  thrown-away  stump  of  cigarette,  or 
for  bits  of  bread  or  biscuit.  Many  seemed  almost  bestial 
in  their  hopeless  misery.  Only  the  Serbs,  stoic  as  always 
maintained  a  reserved  dignity  and  scorned  to  beg. 

Two  or  three  times  a  week  we  were  allowed  into 
Stamboul,  in  parties  of  two  or  three,  each  with  a  guard. 
On  such  days  the  usual  rendezvous  for  lunch  was  a  little 
restaurant  near  the  bridge  across  the  Golden  Horn. 
To  pass  over  the  bridge  across  the  Golden  Horn  was 
forbidden;  for  Pera,  the  European  quarter,  was  pro- 
Ally  almost  to  a  man,  and  a  British  prisoner  might  find 
many  helpers  there.  Even  in  the  preeminently  Turk- 
ish Stamboul  one  often  happened  upon  sympathizers. 
There  was,  for  example,  a  young  Armenian  who,  when- 
ever he  could,  talked  politics  to  us  on  the  little  subur- 
ban railway  between  Stamboul  and  Psamatia,  and  told 
us  the  latest  false  report  of  an  imminent  peace. 


142         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

''Nous  sommes  tons  des  Anglophiles  acharnesy"  he 
assured  F.  and  me. 

The  threatened  interrogation  never  happened ;  and  one 
evening  it  was  announced  that  our  party  of  seven  was 
to  return  to  Afion-kara-Hissar.  From  every  point 
of  view  it  would  be  advisable  to  remain  in  Constanti- 
nople. I  believed  it  to  be  the  only  Turkish  town  in 
which  one  might  arrange  a  successful  escape,  and  I 
knew  that  it  contained  civilians  who  were  either  British 
themselves  or  willing  to  help  British  prisoners.  More- 
over, it  offered  infinite  possibihties  in  the  way  of  distrac- 
tion, which  were  always  attainable  through  baksheesh, 
that  lowest  common  denominator  of  the  Turkish  Em- 
pire. And  if  the  long-promised  exchange  of  sick  pris- 
oners took  place  Constantinople  was  obviously  the 
place  where  strings  must  be  pulled  if  one  wanted  to  be 
sent  home  on  the  strength  of  some  feigned  weakness. 

There  were  at  Psamatia  two  officers  who  had  been 
told  that  they  would  be  among  the  first  batch  of  pris- 
oners to  leave  the  country.  One  of  them,  Flight- 
Lieutenant  F.,  claimed  to  be  suffering  from  some  form 
of  tuberculosis  difficult  of  definition  and  detection  but 
strongly  supported  by  influential  friends.  The  other 
was  Father  M.,  a  Roman  Catholic  padre  who  was 
among  the  captured  garrison  of  Kut-el-Amara.  It  was 
evident  that  thirty  months  of  captivity  had  seriously 
affected  his  well-being,  mental  and  physical.  In  any 
case,  as  a  non-combatant  well  over  military  age,  the 
white-haired  priest  should  most  certainly  have  been 
allowed  to  leave  Turkey.  Meanwhile,  he  was  well  loved 
by  all  at  Psamatia,  even  by  the  guards,  who  knew  him 
as  "Pappas  Effendi."     Whenever  he  passed  down  the 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  143 

street  children  from  among  the  CathoHc  Christians 
who  lived  near  the  prison-house  would  stand  in  his  way, 
and  demand  a  blessing. 

Unfortunately  there  was  m  the  camp  library  no 
medical  text-book  to  tell  how  a  prisoner  might  feign 
nervous  disorders.  I  had  to  be  content  with  coaching 
from  Pappas  EfFendi,  and  with  practising  before  the 
mirror  a  doleful  look,  tempered  by  a  variety  of  twitch- 
ings.  Then  I  visited  the  camp  doctor.  Ever  since  my 
aeroplane  smash,  I  complained  with  mournful  insis- 
tence, I  had  suffered  terribly  from  vertige,  from  periods 
of  utter  forget  fulness,  from  maddening  melancholia, 
and  from  nervous  outbreaks.     Above  all  from  vertige. 

Fortunately  the  doctor,  like  most  Turkish  medical 
men,  was  both  ignorant  and  lazy.  His  day's  work  was 
to  sit  in  an  office  for  two  hours,  always  smoking  a  ciga- 
rette through  an  absurdly  long  holder,  and  having  lis- 
tened to  the  translated  statements  of  would-be  pa- 
tients, either  to  send  them  away  with  a  pill  or  to 
write  out  a  form  whereby  they  could  be  examined  at  a 
hospital. 

A  wound  or  an  injury  he  might  have  treated  by  pill; 
but  it  was  plain  that  the  very  suggestion  of  mental 
trouble  stumped  him.  He  could  not  withstand  the 
word  vertige,  and  after  a  second  repetition  of  it  I  had 
no  difficulty  in  procuring  a  chit  ordering  me  to  be  dealt 
with  by  a  hospital  doctor. 

That  same  afternoon  I  was  led  to  Gumuch  Souyou 
Hospital,  in  Pera.  There  my  claims  to  admission  as  a 
mentally  afflicted  person  were  granted  without  ques- 
tion, so  that  I  began  to  wonder  whether  or  not  I  really 
was  in  my  right  mind.     Having  heard  the  list  of  pre- 


144         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

tended  symptoms,  not  forgetting  the  vertige,  an  Ar- 
menian doctor  sent  me  to  bed  for  a  fortnight's  rest. 

W.,  whose  wounded  arm  was  badly  inflamed,  already 
occupied  a  bed  in  the  same  room,  as  did  Ms.,  who  years 
before  had  ricked  his  right  knee  and,  by  reason  of  its 
weakness,  managed  to  stay  in  hospital,  with  one  eye 
on  the  possibilities  of  an  exchange  of  prisoners.  R.,  who 
had  the  same  object  in  view,  turned  up  from  Psamatia 
later  in  the  day.  He  had  shown  two  perfectly  healed 
bullet-wounds  in  the  leg,  received  three  years  earlier  in 
Gallipoli,  and  bluffed  the  Turkish  doctor  into  believing 
that  they  were  giving  him  renewed  trouble. 

Now  clearly,  if  I  wished  to  maintain  a  reputation  for 
melancholia,  nervous  fits,  and  vertige,  I  should  have  to 
prove  abnormahty;  and  just  as  clearly  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  give  convincing  performances  before  fellow- 
prisoners  who  knew  me  to  be  normal.  The  only  solu- 
tion was  to  demand  removal  to  a  single-bedded  room, 
for  the  sake  of  quiet. 

**  Pulse  and  heat  normal,"  commented  the  ward  doc- 
tor next  morning.  Pulses,  hearts,  and  doctors  are  often 
unaccommodating. 

"Yes,  Monsieur  le  docteur.  For  the  moment  nothing 
worries  me,  except  that  I  have  forgotten  all  that  has  hap- 
pened since  the  aeroplane  smash.  Sometimes  my  mind 
is  a  black  blank,  sometimes  I  am  unconscious  of  what 
I  do,  sometimes  the  vertige  is  so  bad  that  I  cannot  stand 
on  my  feet.  Above  all,  I  hate  being  near  anybody.  I 
desire  complete  rest.  Will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  let  me 
go  to  a  small  room  where  I  can  remain  alone  .^'' 

The  doctor  was  only  half  convinced;  but  he  gave  in- 
structions for  the  change,  while  W.  turned  over  sud- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  145 

denly  to  hide  his  face,  and  covered  his  head  with  a 
blanket  so  as  not  to  laugh  out  loud. 

Once  again,  as  I  lay  in  bed  and  racked  my  common- 
sense  for  ideas  on  the  subject  of  nervous  fits  and  vertige, 
I  deplored  the  lack  of  any  kind  of  medical  text-book; 
for  never  before  had  I  suffered  from  mental  derange- 
ment. 

**  Pulse  and  heart  normal,"  the  doctor  said  inexor- 
ably on  the  following  morning. 

Then,  some  hours  later,  the  conduct  of  Ibrahim,  the 
fat  orderly,  suggested  the  required  inspiration.  Dis- 
regarding instructions  not  to  worry  me,  he  entered  the 
room  in  the  heat  of  early  afternoon,  sat  down,  leaned 
his  head  on  the  table,  and  began  to  snore.  That  really 
did  upset  my  nerves,  and  consciously  I  stimulated  the 
sense  of  irritation  until  I  was  furious  with  the  Turkish 
orderly.  Finally,  blending  this  anger  with  the  need  of 
producing  some  sort  of  a  fit,  I  considered  how  best  to 
attack  him,  and  what  attitude  to  adopt  afterward. 

I  jumped  out  of  bed,  opened  the  door,  seized  Ibrahim 
round  the  middle,  and  flung  him  into  the  corridor,  while 
he  yelled  with  surprise.  Next  I  sat  down  on  the  bed, 
and  began  tearing  the  sheets  into  long  strips.  The  cor- 
poral of  the  guard,  with  another  Turkish  soldier,  half 
opened  the  door,  cautiously,  and  looked  inside.  I  stared 
at  them  blankly,  then  got  into  bed  and  lay  down  quietly, 
facing  the  wall. 

Ibrahim  returned  presently  with  the  doctor  of  the 
day,  who  entered  with  a  surprised  and  quizzical  "jjw* 
est-ce  qu'il  yaV^ 

"Doctor,"  I  said,  "I  fail  to  remember  what  I've  been 
doing  during  the  last  five  minutes.     But  I  feel  Fve  been 


146         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

through  a  crisis.  Even  now  my  head  swims.  I  suffer 
from  acute  vertige,'* 

Followed  a  long  explanation  in  Turkish,  with  ges- 
tures, from  Ibrahim.  The  doctor  felt  my  pulse,  which 
fortunately  had  accelerated  during  the  calculated  ex- 
citement of  heaving  the  orderly  out  of  the  room. 

*' Calmez-vouSf  done/'  said  the  doctor.  '^  Tout  sera 
hien  apres  quelques  semaines."  I  liked  the  suggestion  of 
'^some  weeks,"  for  anything  might  happen  in  that  time. 

Before  leaving  me  the  doctor  prescribed  some  sort  of 
a  bromide  mixture,  with  calming  qualities.  The  first 
performance,  I  felt,  had  been  rather  a  success.  As  for 
the  bromide  mixture,  I  poured  it  out  of  the  window 
during  the  night.  The  bottle  was  filled  again  in  the 
morning. 

Next  day  was  a  fitless  one;  and  by  the  evening  I  felt 
that  something  must  be  done  to  maintain  my  reputa- 
tion. Still  knowing  little  of  how  a  man  with  my  com- 
plaints must  act,  I  thought — ^wrongly,  as  I  discovered 
later — that  somnambulism  would  fit  in  with  the  general 
scheme  of  abnormality. 

I  stayed  awake  until  two  a.m.;  and  then,  wearing  a 
nightshirt,  walked  woodenly  into  the  passage,  with 
arms  outstretched  and  head  upheld.  The  guard  was 
dozing  on  a  bench  that  faced  the  door,  and  when  I 
passed  he  took  not  the  least  notice.  Feeling  hurt  at 
such  disregard,  I  turned  and  passed  him  again,  this 
time  taking  care  to  nudge  his  knee.  He  rubbed  his 
eyes,  shrilled  an  exclamation,  and  began  running  in  the 
opposite  direction.  When  he  returned  with  the  ser- 
geant of  the  guard,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  I  was  in 
bed  and  apparently  asleep. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  147 

During  the  week  that  followed  I  gave  several  minor 
performances.  Soon,  however,  I  was  ousted  from  my 
single-bedded  blessedness  by  a  more  worthy  madman. 
A  Turkish  soldier  passed  into  a  violent  delirium,  and 
ran  down  the  corridor  on  all  fours,  calling  out  that  he 
was  a  horse.  This  was  far  more  striking  than  anything 
I  had  imagined  or  attempted.  The  delirious  Turk  was 
therefore  confined  apart  in  my  little  room  while  I 
shared  a  ward  with  four  Turkish  officers. 

I  chose  melancholia  for  the  first  demonstration  in  the 
new  quarters.  All  day  I  stared  at  the  ceiling,  and  an- 
swered questions  with  a  rough  ''oui'*  or  "wow,"  without 
looking  at  the  questioner.  Then,  at  three  a.m.,  when  the 
four  Turks  were  asleep,  I  picked  up  a  medicine  bottle, 
half  filled  with  the  bromide  medicine,  and  flung  it  at  the 
wall.  It  struck,  tinkled,  and  scattered  in  fragments; 
while  three  of  the  Turkish  officers  woke  and  sat  up  in 
bed. 

*'Air-raid?"  suggested  one  of  them — for  at  that  time 
British  bombers  from  Mudros  were  visiting  Constan- 
tinople on  most  moonlit  nights. 

"No,  a  bottle, "  said  another,  switching  on  a  light  and 
pointing  to  the  splintered  glass. 

He  proceeded  to  protest  angrily  in  Turkish,  and  I 
caught  the  words  "mad  EngHshman."  He  turned  off 
the  Hght,  and  all  lay  down  again.  When  the  night 
orderly  arrived  he  found  everything  quiet,  and  dared 
ask  no  questions  for  fear  of  disturbing  the  Turkish  offi- 
cers. 

Next  morning,  however,  the  senior  officer  in  the  ward 
protested  to  the  chief  doctor  against  being  submitted 
to  disturbance  and  possible  violence  from  a  mentally 


148  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

afflicted  Englishman.  I  was  then  moved  into  a  large 
room  where  were  W.,  R.,  Ms.,  and  other  officer  prison- 
ers. 

To  sham  violence  before  fellow-Britishers  was  almost 
impossible,  I  found,  even  though  they  cooperated  in 
casting  dust  into  Turkish  eyes.  I  modified  the  fits  into 
starts  and  twitchings  whenever  a  sudden  noise  coin- 
cided with  the  presence  of  a  doctor.  The  melancholia 
and  loss  of  memory  I  retained,  for  these  were  easy  of 
accomplishment. 

In  any  case  I  should  have  been  obliged  to  become 
normal  enough  for  walks  outside  the  hospital,  if  my 
hopes  were  to  become  realities.  Staying  in  Constanti- 
nople when  the  rest  of  the  party  had  returned  to  Ana- 
tolia was  all  very  well,  but  it  availed  nothing  unless  I 
could  get  into  touch  with  people  who  might  help  me  to 
plan  an  escape. 

Each  Sunday  morning  such  British  officers  as  were 
not  confined  to  bed  attended  service  at  the  Crimean 
Memorial  Church,  off  the  Grande  Rue  de  Pera.  I 
wished  to  make  use  of  this  fact  in  my  search  for  helpers. 
Besides  the  clergyman  himself  there  were  still  a  few 
British  civilians  free  in  Constantinople,  and  most  of 
them  visited  the  church  on  Sunday  mornings.  Above 
all,  there  would  be  the  chance  of  asking  advice  from 
Miss  Whittaker,  a  very  plucky  and  noble  lady  who  had 
taken  great  risks  upon  herself  in  helping  prisoners.  Al- 
ready she  had  managed  to  visit  us  at  Gumuch  Souyou, 
in  the  company  of  a  Dutch  diplomat's  wife  who  came 
with  official  sanction. 

A  fortnight  of  fairly  mild  behaviour  gained  me  per- 
mission to  attend  divine  service.     With  guards  keeping 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS        .  149 

a  yard  or  so  behind  us  we  walked  through  the  Grande 
Rue  de  Pera,  with  its  crowd  of  evident  sympathizers, 
and  so  to  the  church  at  the  bottom  of  a  winding  side 
street.  Then,  for  an  hour,  I  was  in  England.  Even 
to  such  a  constant  absentee  from  church  services  as 
myself  all  England  was  suggested  by  the  pretty  little 
building,  with  its  floor  smoothly  flagged  in  squares,  its 
simply  compact  altar,  its  well-ordered  pews,  its  con- 
sciously reverent  congregation,  its  rippling  organ,  and — • 
yes,  by  the  great  truths  and  dogmatic  commonplaces 
that  were  platitudinized  from  its  pulpit.  The  very 
sermon — dull,  undistinguished,  and  full  of  the  obvious 
levelness  that  one  hears  in  any  of  a  thousand  small 
churches  on  any  Sunday — brought  joy  unspeakable 
because  of  its  associations. 

The  guards,  who  had  been  standing  at  the  back  of 
the  church  with  hat  on  head,  refused  to  let  us  remain 
near  the  door  when  the  congregation  dispersed.  It 
was  inadvisable  to  bribe  them  in  pubHc;  so  with  a 
friendly  wave  from  Miss  Whittaker,  and  sympathetic 
looks  from  unknown  British  civilians,  we  left  at  once. 
We  crossed  the  Golden  Horn  to  Stamboul,  and  lunched  at 
our  usual  restaurant,  where  I  met  Pappas  EflFendi  again. 

Presently,  in  strolled  another  old  acquaintance — 
Colonel  Prince  Constantine  AvalofF,  the  Georgian.  He 
had  just  arrived  at  Psamatia  from  Afion-kara-Hissar, 
and  brought  with  him  the  latest  news  from  that  camp — 
the  arrival  of  a  new  commandant  who  seemed  quite 
pleasant,  the  success  of  the  latest  concert,  the  delivery 
of  a  batch  of  parcels,  the  increase  in  price  of  drak,  and 
other  of  the  small  happenings  that  filled  the  deadly  life 
of  a  prisoner  of  war  in  Turkey.     For  me  the  most  in- 


ISO         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

teresting  item  of  news  was  that  Captain  Tom  White 
was  to  be  sent  to  a  Constantinople  hospital.  Although 
he  had  said  nothing  about  escaping,  I  rather  thought 
he  intended  to  try  it.  If  he  came  to  Gumuch  Souyou 
he  would  be  a  useful  companion,  for  I  knew  him  to  be 
both  ingenious  and  unafraid.  Meanwhile,  I  revealed 
my  own  hopes  to  the  prince,  who  promised  to  help  in 
any  way  possible.  He  was  hkely  to  be  of  use,  for  as  a 
result  of  Georgia's  submission  to  Germany,  he  was  now 
free  to  move  about  the  city  without  a  guard.  I  walked 
back  to  Pera  Hght-heartedly,  with  an  instinctive  knowl- 
edge that  opportunity  was  in  the  offing. 

A  tousled  scarecrow  of  a  man  was  sitting  up  in  a 
hitherto  empty  bed  as  we  reentered  the  prisoners'  ward 
of  the  hospital.  His  long,  untrimmed  hair  hung  over 
an  unwashed  neck,  his  cheeks  were  sunken,  his  hands 
were  clasped  over  the  bedclothes  that  covered  his  shins. 
He  never  looked  at  us,  but  with  an  expression  of  the 
most  unswerving  austerity  continued  to  read  a  book 
that  lay  open  on  his  knees.  As  I  passed  I  saw,  from  the 
ruling  and  paragraphing  of  the  pages,  that  it  must  be 
a  copy  of  the  Bible.  «i 

I  looked  round  for  enlightenment,  only  to  find  my- 
self face  to  face  with  an  even  stranger  figure.  In  a  bed 
opposite  the  scarecrow  sat  a  man  whose  face  was  un- 
naturally white.  The  young  forehead  was  divided  and 
sub-divided  by  deep  wrinkles;  a  golden  beard  tufted 
from  the  chin;  the  head  was  covered  by  a  too-large 
fez  made  of  white  linen.  He  grinned  and  waved  an 
arm  toward  the  Turkish  orderly;  but  when  we  looked 
at  him,  he  shrank  back  in  apparent  affright,  then  hid 
under  the  bedclothes. 


Captain  T.  W.  White,  Australian  Flying  Corps,  who  accompanied 
Captain  Alan  Bott  in  the  1,000  mile  Odyssey  to  FVeedom,  starting  from 
Constantinople.  The  clothes  are  the  disguise  worn  by  Captain  White  in 
Constantinople. 


c        c   c    c 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  151 

**  English  officers,"  said  the  orderly,  *'come  from  Hai- 
dar  Pasha  Hospital.     Both  mad.'* 

"I  am  not  English,"  protested  in  Turkish  the  strange 
befezzed  head  as  it  shot  from  under  the  bedclothes. 
"I  am  a  good  Turk.  The  English  are  my  enemies.  I 
wrote  to  His  Excellency  Enver  Pasha,  telling  him  I 
wished  to  become  a  Turkish  officer." 

"Mulazim  Heel,''  continued  the  Turk,  pointing  to- 
ward the  scarecrow.  Then,  as  he  swung  his  hand  in 
the  direction  of  the  man  who  had  written  to  Enver 
Pasha,  *'  Mulazim  Jazv-nes." 

"My  name  is  not  Jones,"  the  Fantastic  shouted, 
still  speaking  in  Turkish,  "I  am  Ahmed  Hamdi  Ef- 
fendi." 

Yet  he  was  indeed  Jones,  just  as  much  as  the  scare- 
crow opposite  him  was  Hill.  We  had  heard  stories  of 
their  extravagant  doings,  but  this  was  our  first  sight 
of  the  famous  lunatics  whose  reputation  had  spread 
through  every  prison-camp  in  Turkey.  The  Turks 
believed  them  to  be  mad,  and  although  there  were 
sceptics,  so  did  many  of  the  British  prisoners.  When, 
after  watching  the  pair  for  several  hours,  we  went  into 
the  garden  that  evening  and  discussed  them,  we  agreed 
that  they  were  either  real  lunatics  or  brilliant  actors. 

It  had  all  begun  months  earlier  at  Yozgad.  To  pass 
the  weary  time  Jones  and  Hill  dabbled  in  and  experi- 
mented with  hypnotism  and  telepathy.  By  making 
ingenuity  and  the  conjuror's  artifice  (at  which  Hill  was 
an  expert)  adjuncts  of  their  seances,  they  nonplussed 
fellow-prisoners  and  Turks  alike;  for  it  was  impossible 
to  tell  whether  trickery  or  something  inexplicable  was 
the    basis   of  their   astonishing   demonstrations.     By 


152         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

means  of  the  Spirit  of  Music  (a  hidden  lamp  with  the 
wick  turned  too  high),  the  Buried  Treasure  Guarded 
by  Arms  (some  coins  and  an  old  pistol  that  were  first 
placed  in  position  and  then  "revealed"  by  digging), 
the  Miraculous  Photographs  (taken  with  a  secret 
camera  designed  and  constructed  by  themselves),  and 
other  devices,  they  reduced  the  camp  commandant 
and  his  staff  to  a  state  of  bewildered  fear.  When  they 
had  hoodwinked  the  commandant  into  the  behef  that 
they  could  exchange  mind-messages  with  local  civilians, 
he  confined  them  in  a  small  room,  and  allowed  no  com- 
munication with  other  prisoners. 

From  this  time  onward,  moreover,  Jones  and  Hill 
showed  apparent  dread  of  their  fellow-prisoners.  The 
British  oflicers  at  Yozgad  wanted  to  destroy  them,  they 
informed  the  Turkish  commandant,  adding  a  plea  for 
protection.  Meanwhile,  their  hair  and  beards  grew 
longer  and  more  untrimmed,  their  general  appearance 
stranger  and  wilder.  Perhaps  their  most  impressive 
exploit  at  Yozgad  was  when  a  guard  found  them  hang- 
ing side  by  side  on  ropes  that  were  suspended  from  a 
beam,  the  chairs  that  supported  their  weight  having 
been  kicked  away  just  before  he  entered  the  room.  He 
cut  down  the  dangling  bodies,  and  his  tale  confirmed 
the  commandant  in  the  belief  that  the  spiritualistic 
prisoners  were  altogether  insane.  A  few  days  later 
they  went  under  escort  to  Constantinople,  and  were 
admitted  to  Haidar  Pasha  Hospital. 

From  this  hospital  their  reputation  spread  all  over 
Constantinople.  Long  before  they  were  transferred 
to  Gumuch  Souyou  I  had  heard  how  Hill  read  the  Bible 
all  day,  and  uttered  never  a  word  except  when  he 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  153 

prayed  aloud;  and  how  Jones,  having  In  two  months 
learned  to  talk  Turkish  perfectly,  proclaimed  himself 
a  Turk,  and  would  speak  no  other  language.  His 
name,  he  insisted  time  and  again,  was  Ahmed  Hamdi 
EfFendi.  He  disregarded  all  Britishers  in  Haidar 
Pasha  Hospital  unless  it  were  to  tell  the  Turkish  doctor 
that  Jones  was  mad,  and  therefore,  as  the  afflicted  of 
Allah,  not  to  be  blamed. 

Once  he  threw  himself  into  the  pond  in  the  garden. 
Once,  having  received  the  usual  Red  Cross  monthly 
remittance  from  an  official  of  the  Dutch  Legation,  he 
tore  the  bank-notes  in  two,  threw  the  scraps  of  paper 
across  the  room,  and  declared  that  he  wanted  no  Eng- 
lish money.  During  an  air-raid  over  Constantinople 
he  ran  into  the  open  and  demanded  a  gun,  so  that  he 
might  shoot  down  the  British  aeroplanes. 

At  about  sundown  on  his  first  evening  with  us  Hill 
closed  the  Bible,  stepped  out  of  bed,  and  knelt  down, 
facing  the  east.  Then,  without  a  pause,  he  recited 
prayers  in  a  loud  voice  for  twenty  minutes.  Several 
Turks  came  in  to  listen,  while  Jones,  tapping  his  be- 
fezzed  head,  explained  to  them  that  the  kneehng  figure 
was  mad. 

Each  morning  and  each  evening  Hill  knelt  on  the 
floor  and  prayed  aloud.  Sometimes  during  the  night 
he  would  walk  to  another  bedside,  wake  up  its  occupant, 
and  exhort  him  to  prayer.  For  the  rest  he  spoke  never 
a  word  other  than  "Yes"  or  "No,"  or  "I  don't  know," 
in  answer  to  questions.  All  day  he  sat  in  bed,  with 
eyes  riveted  on  the  Bible  by  unswerving  concentra- 
tion, or  clasped  his  head  and  appeared  lost  in  medita- 
tion.    When  the  doctor  examined  him  he  paid  not  the 


154  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

slightest  attention,  but  when  an  effort  was  made  to  take 
away  the  Bible,  he  clutched  it  desperately,  and  was 
evidently  ready  to  use  violence.  His  hair  and  beard 
grew  longer  and  more  tousled,  until  he  was  forcibly 
shaved;  whereupon,  with  his  hollowed  cheeks  and 
sunken,  glowing  eyes,  he  looked  more  of  a  scarecrow 
than  ever. 

Jones  kept  himself  quite  dapper  in  his  own  peculiar 
fashion.  His  curly  golden  beard  and  moustache  seemed 
to  be  his  especial  pride.  At  first  Ms.  attempted  con- 
versations with  him;  but  as  he  always  turned  away 
and  showed  fright,  we  left  him  alone  Yet  twice  he 
sought  out  the  chief  doctor,  and  complained  that  the 
British  officers  wanted  to  murder  him.  Being  a  Turk, 
he  continued,  why  was  he  kept  in  a  room  with  EngUsh- 
men,  who  were  his  enemies  and  wanted  to  hurt  him? 

Beyond  laughing  and  remarking  how  sad  it  was  that 
our  comrade  should  be  so  mad,  the  chief  doctor  took  no 
notice.  Thereupon  Ahmed  Hamdi  sat  down  and  wrote 
a  letter  of  furious  complaint  to  His  Excellency  Enver 
Pasha,  Minister  of  War  in  the  Young  Turk  govern- 
ment, and  incidentally  the  most  ruthless  desperado  in 
that  all-desperado  body,  the  Committee  of  Union  and 
Progress. 

I  still  remember  every  detail  and  movement  of  an 
absurd  scene.  Ms.  lay  asleep  one  hot  afternoon,  with 
a  bare  foot  protruding  through  the  bars  at  the  bottom 
of  the  bed.  R.  crawled  across  the  floor,  intending  to 
crouch  beneath  Ms.'s  bedstead  and  tickle  the  sole  of  his 
foot  with  a  feather.  Jones,  whose  bed  was  next  to 
that  of  Ms.,  shrank  back  and  made  a  tentative  move 
toward  the  door  as  R.  glided  nearer.     R.  looked  up 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  155 

casually  from  his  all-fours  position  and  found  the  luna- 
tic's face  glaring  at  him  with  wide-open,  rolling  eyes. 
The  pair  stared  at  each  other  surprisedly  for  a  few 
seconds,  then  Ahmed  Hamdi  Jones  yelled,  leaped  from 
his  bed,  and  ran  out  of  the  room. 

If  that  was  acting,  we  agreed,  it  was  very  wonderful 
acting.  We  incHned  to  the  theory  that  Hill  and  Jones 
had  in  the  beginning  merely  shammed  lunacy,  as  a 
passport  for  England,  but  that  under  the  mental  stress 
and  nervous  strain  of  living  their  abnormal  roles  they 
had  really  become  insane.  Another  suggestion  was  that 
they  lost  their  reason  already  at  Yozgad,  as  a  result  of 
dabbling  overmuch  in  spiritualism. 

It  was  White  who  solved  the  mystery,  although  at 
the  time  he  revealed  it  only  to  me.  With  a  badly 
marked  ankle  (the  result  of  a  too-hot  poultice)  well  in 
evidence,  he  arrived  one  day  from  Afion-kara-Hissar, 
and  suggested  to  the  doctors  that  the  said  ankle  was 
tubercular.  He  was  placed  in  the  bed  next  to  the 
scarecrow's. 

Hill  had  let  it  be  known  that  he  was  undertaking  a 
forty-days'  penance,  during  which  he  would  eat  nothing 
but  bread.  All  other  food  offered  him  by  the  Turks  he 
ignored.  After  a  few  days  of  semi-starvation  his  cheek- 
bones were  more  prominent  than  ever,  his  cheeks  more 
hollowed,  and  the  colour  of  his  face  was  an  unhealthy 
faint  yellow. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night,  when  everybody  else  was 
asleep.  White  woke  him  and  passed  over  a  note.  In 
this,  as  a  fellow-Australian,  he  oflFered  any  sort  of  as- 
sistance that  might  be  acceptable.  Then  he  handed 
Hill  some  chocolate  and  biscuits  taken  from  a  newly 


156  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

arrived  parcel.  These  the  scarecrow  accepted,  and, 
not  daring  to  whisper  in  case  somebody  were  listening, 
wrote  a  sanely  worded  message  thanking  White  for 
the  offer,  which  he  accepted.  It  contained  also  a  warn- 
ing that,  for  safety's  sake,  the  other  Britishers  must 
be  led  to  believe  that  both  he  and  Jones  were  mad. 

Thereafter  White  fed  him  secretly  each  night.  In 
the  daytime  he  maintained  his  long  fast,  to  the  great 
astonishment  of  the  Turks.  White  also  helped  by 
complaining  that  the  madman  woke  him  at  night-time, 
and  asked  him  to  pray. 

Later,  having  heard  escape  talk  between  White  and 
me.  Hill  wrote  down  an  address  where  we  might  hide  in 
Constantinople,  and  let  me  into  the  secret  that  he  was 
pretending  lunacy,  so  as  to  be  sent  out  of  the  country 
as  a  madman. 

Now  that  I  knew  the  scarecrow  and  Ahmed  Hamdi 
Jones  to  be  as  sane  as  myself,  I  marvelled  at  their  flaw- 
less presentation  of  different  aspects  of  lunacy,  and  at 
the  determination  which  allowed  them  to  play  their 
strange  parts  for  months.  Hill,  in  particular,  had  a 
difficult  role,  and  I  wondered  that  his  mind  never  gave 
way  under  it.  To  sit  up  in  bed  for  twelve  hours  a  day, 
reading  and  rereading  a  Bible;  to  talk  to*  nobody  and 
look  at  nobody,  and  to  show  no  sign  of  interest  when 
vital  subjects  were  being  discussed  by  fellow-prisoners 
a  few  yards  away;  to  pray  aloud  for  nearly  half  an  hour 
each  morning  and  evening,  in  the  presence  of  a  dozen 
people;  to  maintain  an  expression  of  rigid  melancholy, 
and  not  to  let  even  the  ghost  of  a  smile  touch  one's 
features  for  many  weeks — this  must  require  almost  in- 
human concentration. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         157 

Jones  had  a  far  better  time,  for  his  specialty  was  not 
studied  tragedy  but  spontaneous  farce.  He  seemed  to 
enjoy  enormously  the  complete  fooling  of  all  around 
him,  the  planning  of  a  new  fantasy  and  the  head-over- 
heels  performance  of  it,  without  being  restrained  by 
convention  or  ridicule,  or  a  sense  of  the  normal. 

Cheerful  lunacy,  in  fact,  is  great  fun.  Even  in  my 
own  minor  assumptions  of  a  state  of  unreason  I  had 
found  it  very  stimulating  and  amusing.  A  mental 
holiday  from  logic,  custom,  the  consideration  gf  public 
opinion  and  other  irksome  boundaries  of  artificial 
stability  is  glorious.  Itself  untrammelled,  the  mind 
can  watch  from  a  spectator's  point  of  view  the  patch- 
work restraints  and  Httlenesses  of  civiHzation,  and  take, 
delight  in  tilting  at  them. 

Often  I  envied  Jones,  with  his  fez,  his  golden  beard 
and  his  role  of  Ahmed  Hamdi  Effendi,  as  he  talked  to  a 
group  of  Turkish  officers.     They  would  laugh  at  him 
openly;  but  secretly  he  would  laugh  much  more  heartily 
at  them. 

Few  things  in  our  roomful  of  nine  British  officers 
were  not  farcical.  Only  one  of  us — old  W.,  with  his 
wounded  arm — had  any  real  claim  to  be  in  hospital. 
R.,  with  a  healed  woundscar  dating  back  to  the  Galli- 
poh  campaign,  C,  with  sciatica  and  late  middle-age; 
and  Ms.,  with  a  weak  knee  dating  back  to  before  the 
war,  were  trying  to  build  up  a  case  for  release  as  ex- 
changed prisoners  of  war.  Jones  and  Hill,  by  means  of 
magnificent  acting,  had  made  everybody  believe  in 
their  assumed  madness,  and  were  also  hoping  to  be  sent 
home  in  consequence.  "Wormy" — formerly  aide-de- 
camp  to   General   Townsend — wanted    to    remain    a 


158  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

hospital  patient  because  he  had  friends  and  amuse- 
ments in  Constantinople,  and  achieved  this  wish  by 
means  of  mythical  hemorrhages. 

For  my  part,  I  still  gave  false  evidence  of  nervous 
disorders,  although  such  efforts  were  dwarfed  by  the 
exploits  of  Jones  and  Hill.  In  any  case,  it  was  to  my 
interest  to  show  only  mild  symptoms,  such  as  fits  of 
trembling  during  an  air-raid,  or  whenever  a  gun  was 
fired.  Had  I  been  more  violent,.!  should  not  have  been 
allowed  into  the  dty  on  Sundays,  at  a  time  when  I  had 
made  useful  acquaintances  and  was  plotting  an  escape. 

So  the  strange  days  passed.  Hill  and  Jones,,  spur- 
red by  reports  of  a  near-future  exchange  of  prisoners, 
gave  constant  and  enlivening  performances.  M.  and 
R.  cultivated  effective  limps.  Wormy  amused  hinuself. 
White  and  I  discussed  our  plans  while  strolling  in  the 
garden.  Each  morning  the  doctor  walked  once  round 
the  ward,  said  to  each  patient:  ^' Bonjour,  ga  va  bien?" 
signed  the  diet  sheets,  and  left  us.  Of  other  medical 
attendance  there  was  none,  except  when  W.'s  arm  was 
operated  on,  or  when  Jones  complained  to  the  chief 
doctor  about  our  desire  to  murder  him. 

How  the  madmen  were  included  in  the  first  batch  of 
British  prisoners  to  be  exchanged  from  Turkey,  how 
they  were  led  on  board  the  Red  Cross  ship  that  the 
Turks  had  allowed  to  the  Gulf  of  Smyrna,  how  Ahmed 
Hamdi  Jones  protested  against  being  handed  over  to 
his  enemies  the  British,  and  how  he  and  the  Bible- 
reader  miraculously  recovered  their  sanity  as  soon  as  the 
British  vessel  had  left  Turkish  waters,  all  that  is  a 
story  in  itself. 


CHAPTER  IX 

INTRODUCING  THEODORE  THE  GREEK,  JOHN  WILLIE 
THE     BOSNIAN,     AND    DAVID     LLOYD     GEORGE's     SECOND 

COUSIN 

The  Maritza  is  a  little  restaurant  near  Stamboul  sta- 
tion. Coming  toward  it  from  the  bridge  across  the 
Golden  Horn  one  passed  along  a  side  street  so  narrow 
that  the  bodies  of  passengers  clinging  to  the  rails  of  the 
swaying  and  much-loaded  tram-cars  often  collided  with 
pedestrians.  With  a  guard  at  our  heels,  we  would  dis- 
appear through  a  doorway,  and  find  ourselves  in  a  low 
room  that  reeked  of  sausages  and  intrigue. 

Whenever  the  captive  officers  at  Psamatia  came  to 
Stamboul  they  lunched  at  the  Maritza,  where  they 
could  hear  the  latest  rumours  from  the  bazaars.  On 
Sundays  they  were  joined  there  by  not-too-sick  officers 
from  our  hospital  and  that  of  Haidar  Pasha. 

Theodore,  the  Greek  waiter,  looked  exactly  what 
he  was — a  born  conspirator  who  had  strayed  from  melo- 
drama into  real  life.  In  the  whole  of  Turkey  there  was 
no  greater  expert  in  the  science  of  throwing  dust  into 
the  eyes  of  soldiers  and  gendarmes.  He  not  only  lived 
by  plotting,  but,  next  to  money,  seemed  to  like  it  better 
than  anything  in  the  world. 

He  was  also  a  first-rate  gossip.  Having  seated  the 
guards  in  a  corner  where  they  could  see  but  not  hear 

159 


i6o         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

us,  the  little  Greek,  with  his  bent  shoulders  and  blue- 
glassed  spectacles,  would  sidle  up  to  our  table,  and  pro- 
ducing a  menu-card,  say: 

''Bonjour!  What  would  you  like,  gentlemen?" 
Then,  running  his  finger  down  the  list  as  if  suggesting 
something  to  eat,  he  would  continue:  "I  heard  to-day 
that  the  Grand  Vizier  had  quarrelled  once  more  with 
the  Sultan";  or,  "Enver  Pasha  was  shot  at  in  Galata 
yesterday,  and  is  wounded  in  the  chest.  It  is  said  that 
he  will  not  recover."  He  never  failed  to  produce  at 
least  one  such  rumour  as  these.  Most  often  he  would 
announce  that  Bulgaria  was  about  to  make  a  separate 
peace,  which  possibiHty  was  reported  in  Constantinople 
at  least  a  dozen  times  before  it  really  happened. 

I  always  found  him  trustworthy,  for  his  hatred  of  the 
Turks  was  stronger  even  than  his  greed  for  money, 
and  no  sum  could  have  tempted  him  to  become  a  spy 
in  the  service  of  the  Turkish  police — a  position  once 
offered  to  him.  In  any  case,  he  was  always  convinced 
that  the  British  would  win  the  war;  and,  therefore, 
knowing  which  side  his  bread  was  buttered,  would 
never  have  dared  to  betray  the  Britishers  who  em- 
ployed   him. 

As  an  intermediary  for  correspondence  he  was  reliable 
but  expensive,  his  charge  being  twenty  piastres  for  each 
letter  delivered. 

"Theodore,  my  friend,"  one  would  say,  "I  want  you 
to  go  to  Per  a  for  me." 

"Good.  If  you  have  not  written  the  letter  I  will 
engage  the  guards  while  you  prepare  it." 

He  would  then  stroll  across  to  the  guards'  table  with 
the  news  that  the  British  officers  would  be  pleased  to 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  i6i 

buy  them  whatever  they  wanted  to  eat;  and  the  pris- 
oner scribbled  his  note,  a  sHp  of  paper  resting  on  his 
lap  and  the  body  of  Theodore  screening  him  from  the 
guards  in  the  far  corner.  Later  the  letter  would  be 
handed  to  Theodore,  in  the  middle  of  the  banknotes 
with  which  one  paid  the  bill. 

If  a  reply  were  brought,  Theodore  deHvered  it  under 
cover  of  a  menu-card,  always  with  a  whispered  re- 
minder, "Twenty  piastres."  During  the  last  six  months 
of  the  war  the  Greek  waiter  must  have  been  the  mes- 
senger for  scores  of  secret  communications. 

It  was  early  in  July  when  we  heard  of  the  arrival  in 
Haidar  Pasha  Hospital — across  the  Sea  of  Marmora — 
of  Captain  Yeats-Brown  and  Captain  Sir  Robert  Paul. 
Yeats-Brown  was  demanding  attention  for  his  nose  and 
Paul  for  his  ear.  With  vivid  memories  of  conversa- 
tions in  Afion,  I  had  sympathy  for  neither  the  nose 
nor  the  ear,  but  a  great  deal  for  the  schemes  of  escape 
which  I  knew  them  to  be  planning.  I  sent  Yeats- 
Brown  a  note,  through  the  agency  of  Theodore,  suggest- 
ing an  appointment  for  lunch  on  the  following  Sunday. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  met  him  before  lunch-time. 
With  the  rest  of  the  congregation  we  were  leaving  for 
the  little  English  church  off  the  Grande  Rue  de  Pera, 
when  the  pair  approached  the  vestry  door  with  guards 
at  their  heels.  Since  I  last  saw  them  both  had  grown 
moustaches,  and  an  appearance  of  dishevelled  untidi- 
ness was  given  to  Paul  by  a  short,  stubby  tuft  of  beard. 
At  the  time  I  was  talking  to  Miss  Whittaker,  and  I  took 
the  opportunity  of  introducing  the  new  arrivals.  Paul 
drew  Miss  Whittaker  aside,  and  began  talking  earn- 
estly, while  Yeats-Brown  told  me  that  the   guards' 


i62  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

orders  were  to  take  him  direct  to  Haidar  Pasha,  and 
that  we  should  have  to  wait  a  week  longer  before  meet- 
ing at  the  Maritza. 

Next  Sunday  afternoon,  on  entering  the  little  res- 
taurant, I  heard  Yeats-Brown  asking  Theodore  to  show 
him  where  a  special  brand  of  cigarettes  might  be  bought. 
This  he  did  in  a  loud  voice,  speaking  Turkish,  as  if  he 
wished  the  guards  to  overhear.  The  pair  left  the  door- 
way, and  disappeared  into  a  tobacco  shop.  Both  de- 
parted bare-headed,  so  that  the  guards  remained  in  their 
seats  and  were  unsuspicious.  Paul  was  at  a  table  near 
them,  taking  great  care  to  appear  unconcerned.  His 
beard  had  grown  longer  during  the  past  seven  days,  and 
he  looked  stranger  and  more  dishevelled  than  ever. 

Five  minutes  later  he  and  I  were  joined  by  Yeats- 
Brown,  who,  as  he  returned  with  Theodore,  took  care 
to  flaunt  a  newly  bought  box  of  cigarettes  before  the 
eyes  of  his  guard.  He  had  been  to  look  at  the  outside 
of  Theodore's  own  house,  so  that  he  might  recognize  it. 

He  and  Paul  were  to  be  turned  out  of  hospital  in  two 
days'  time.  They  had  had  no  time  to  arrange  a  defi- 
nite scheme,  but  as  they  were  to  be  sent  to  Asia  Minor 
very  shortly,  it  would  be  necessary  for  them  to  escape 
almost  immediately.  I  did  not  seek  to  join  them,  for 
White  and  I  were  still  safe  in  Gumuch  Souyou  and  had 
hopes  of  stealing  an  aeroplane.  I  therefore  wished 
Yeats-Brown  the  best  of  luck,  and  after  returning  to 
hospital,  waited  anxiously  for  news. 

Our  first  intimation  of  what  had  happened  came 
when  the  chief  doctor  announced  that  no  Britishers 
were  to  be  allowed  into  the  city,  because  two  prisoners 
had  escaped.     Soon  afterward  a  Russian,  who  arrived 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  163 

from  Psamatia  with  influenza,  brought  details.  With 
their  bank-notes  (obtained  from  Mr.  S.,  a  British  civil- 
ian living  in  Pera)  sewn  up  in  suspenders  and  braces, 
with  faces  and  hands  stained  brown,  and  each  wearing 
a  fez,  the  pair  had  climbed  out  of  their  window  at  Psa- 
matia in  the  middle  of  the  night,  crept  along  a  ledge, 
tied  a  rope  to  the  gutter  of  the  roof,  and  let  themselves 
down  into  a  dark  doorway.  The  rope  was  found  in  the 
morning,  still  dangling  from  the  roof.  Since  then — 
three  days  ago — nothing  had  been  heard  of  them. 

Meanwhile  the  hopes  of  White  and  myself  revolved 
round  John  Willie  the  Bosnian.  This  man,  an  Aus- 
trian aviator  who  was  a  heutenant  in  the  Turkish  Fly- 
ing Corps,  had  been  shot  down  in  Palestine,  and  in  the 
ward  next  to  ours  was  receiving  treatment  for  minor 
injuries.  He  told  Ms.  that  in  a  few  weeks'  time  he 
would  desert  from  Turkey  by  aeroplane,  and  said  he 
wanted  a  letter  of  recommendation,  to  be  presented 
to  the  British  when  he  landed  at  Mudros.  Ms.  refused 
to  write  such  a  compromising  letter,  and,  not  trusting 
the  Bosnian,  disregarded  a  suggestion  that  he  should 
be  taken  as  passenger  in  the  proposed  flight  to  Mudros. 

Next,  Ms.  having  left  the  hospital,  the  Bosnian  ap- 
proached me.  Finding  that  I  was  a  fellow-aviator, 
his  first  overtures  dealt,  innocuously  enough,  with  war- 
flying  in  general  and  his  own  experiences  in  particular. 

Then,  one  evening,  he  announced,  with  the  air  of  a 
conspirator,  that  he  was  about  to  tell  me  an  important 
secret.  I  knew  what  was  coming,  but  was  careful  to 
pretend  ignorance.  John  Willie — the  name  by  which 
he  became  known  to  us,  for  we  dared  not  risk  suspicion 
by  mentioning  his  real  name  when  we  talked  among 


i64  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

ourselves  in  the  presence  of  Turks — thereupon  produced 
an  EngHsh  grammar,  and  said  I  must  make  pretence 
of  teaching  him  English,  so  that  we  might  meet  each 
day.  He  would  tell  the  Turkish  doctors  that  I  had  be- 
come his  schoolmaster. 

His  first  suggestion,  as  we  sat  down  on  a  shady  bench, 
was  that  I  should  write  him  a  letter  to  take  to  Mudros. 
Like  Ms.,  I  declined,  not  knowing  what  was  at  the 
back  of  his  mind.  A  Turkish  corporal  passed  the 
bench,  whereupon  John  Willie  began  mispronouncing 
some  EngHsh  words,  taken  at  random  from  the  page 
of  the  grammar  which  lay  open  on  his  lap. 

"If,"  I  said,  "you  can  get  me  an  aeroplane  to  fly 
to  Mudros  myself  I  will.  The  book  is  on  the  table, 
das  Buck  liegt  auf  dem  TischeJ"  This  last  when  the 
Turkish  corporal  turned  back  and  glanced  at  us  as  he 
passed  a  second  time. 

"Ze  book  eez  on  tabel,"  repeated  John  Willie.  Then 
in  German,  "I  was  going  to  suggest  the  same  thing 
myself." 

*  John  Willie  proceeded  to  reveal  the  reasons  why  he 
was  so  anxious  to  desert.  As  a  Bosnian,  he  said,  he 
hated  the  Austrians,  and  it  was  because  of  this  that  he 
entered  the  Turkish  and  not  the  Austrian  army.  In 
any  case,  his  mother  was  of  American  birth  and  was  now 
in  the  United  States,  while  his  brother,  so  he  learned, 
had  enlisted  in  the  American  army. 

His  own  sympathies  were  pro-British  and  pro-Ameri- 
can, and  it  was  his  earnest  desire  to  join  his  mother  and 
become  naturalized  as  an  American  citizen.  If,  how- 
ever, he  landed  at  Mudros  in  Turkish  uniform,  he  would 
be  made  a  prisoner  of  war;  whereas  if,  as  a  guarantee  of 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  165 

good  faith,  he  took  with  him  a  British  prisoner  or  a 
letter  from  a  British  prisoner,  all  would  be  well. 

Next  he  proceeded  to  give  details  of  his  plan,  while 
running  his  finger  over  the  open  page  of  the  English 
grammar,  as  if  reading  from  it.  In  about  a  fortnight's 
time  he  would  be  discharged  from  hospital,  and  through 
the  influence  of  a  friendly  staff  officer  he  would  be 
posted  to  the  aerodrome  at  San  Stefano.  This  aero- 
drome, situated  about  twenty  miles  from  Stamboul, 
was  the  headquarters  of  the  German  pilots  who  made 
a  pretence  of  defending  Constantinople  from  British 
air-raids. 

Having  got  himself  appointed  orderly  officer  for  the 
night,  and  being  the  only  pilot  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  hangars  (for  the  officers'  billets  were  in  San  Ste- 
fano itself,  half  a  mile  from  the  aerodrome),  it  would  be 
easy  for  him  to  take  a  petrol-loaded  machine  into  the 
air,  head  westward,  fly  over  the  Dardanelles  to  the  open 
sea,  and  so  to  Mudros. 

"If,"  continued  John  Willie,  "you  can  make  your 
way  to  San  Stefano,  it  will  be  a  simple  matter  to  pick 
you  up  near  the  aerodrome,  and  to  take  you  as  passen- 
ger in  the  back  seat." 

"But,"  I  objected,  "there  would  be  a  friend  with  me. 
If  I  fly  to  Mudros,  he  also  must  come." 

The  Bosnian  showed  his  eagerness  by  an  evident  de- 
termination to  override  all  suggested  difficulties.  A 
two-seated  Rumpler,  he  pointed  out,  could  take,  be- 
sides the  pilot,  two  men  in  the  observer's  cockpit,  as  had 
been  proven  many  times.  The  only  drawback  was  that 
if  three  of  us  travelled  in  the  same  machine  our  com- 
bined weight  would  add  at  least  three-quarters  of  an 


i66         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

hour  to  the  flight  for  freedom,  and  if  we  were  chased 
and  attacked  an  adequate  defence  would  be  made  dif- 
ficult. He  proposed  that  I  might  pilot  the  two-seater 
while  he  followed  and  pretended  to  give  chase  in  an 
Albatross  scout.  He  was  more  than  willing  to  escort 
two  of  us  to  Mudros  if  only  we  would  sponsor  him  with 
the  British  authorities,  and  pay  his  passage  to  America. 

Several  times  during  the  days  that  followed  I  plotted 
with  the  Bosnian  in  the  garden,  always  with  the  Eng- 
lish grammar  as  camouflage  for  earnest  talks.  Finally, 
after  discussing  every  detail,  we  evolved  a  plan  which 
seemed  workable.  When  John  Willie  should  have  been 
posted  to  San  Stefano,  White  and  I  were  to  claim  that 
we  were  cured.  We  should  then  be  transferred  to 
Psamatia,  which  was  already  half-way  between  Stam- 
boul  and  San  Stefano.  He  refused  to  take  the  risk  of 
helping  us  to  escape  from  Psamatia,  but  he  would  meet 
us  after  we  should  have  reached  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  aerodrome.  He  could  arrange  to  be  night  orderly 
oflicer  between  two  given  dates,  and  during  this  period 
he  would  seek  us  at  the  place  of  rendezvous,  at  three 
o'clock  each  morning. 

His  plan,  having  found  us,  was  to  go  to  the  hangars, 
and  on  the  pretence  of  testing  a  Rumpler  two-seater, 
take  it  into  the  air.  He  would  land  in  a  field  near  us, 
keeping  his  engine  ticking  over.  White  and  I  must  run 
toward  him  and  climb  into  the  rear  cockpit.  He 
would  leave  the  ground  again  immediately,  and  head 
for  the  Dardanelles. 

Even  taking  into  account  the  heavy  load  of  three 
men,  pursuit  seemed  unhkely,  because  all  the  other 
pilots  would  be  asleep  in  their  billets.     In  any  case,  it 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  167 

was  improbable  that  the  mechanics  from  the  aerodrome 
would  see  us  climbing  into  the  Rumpler.  We  aban- 
doned the  suggestion  that  I  should  fly  the  two-seater 
while  the  Bosnian  gave  chase  in  an  Albatross,  as  we 
failed  to  think  of  a  plausible  tale  for  John  Willie  to  tell 
his  mechanics,  by  way  of  explaining  how  the  Rumpler 
could  have  been  stolen  from  him  by  strangers. 

The  Bosnian  drew  detailed  maps,  giving  the  position 
of  the  aerodrome  in  relation  to  San  Stefano  station, 
with  the  hangars,  the  officers'  mess,  and  other  buildings 
marked  on  it.  The  place  of  rendezvous  was  to  be  the 
fringe  of  a  small  wood  that  bordered  a  field  southwest 
of  the  aerodrome,  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  road  to 
Bulgaria. 

John  Willie  also  procured  for  us  a  German  staflF-map, 
which  included  the  countryside  between  Psamatia  and 
San  Stefano.  White  and  I  had  decided,  however,  that 
our  best  plan  would  be  to  give  the  guards  the  slip  during 
the  daytime  in  one  of  the  winding  side  streets  of  Stam- 
boul,  to  buy  tickets  openly  at  the  railway  station,  and 
to  travel  to  San  Stefano  as  ordinary  passengers.  Us- 
ing John  WiUie's  pencilled  map,  we  could  then  find 
the  place  of  rendezvous  and  lie  low  in  the  wood  until 
the  following  morning. 

Meanwhile,  now  that  Sunday  visits  to  the  city  were 
forbidden,  I  employed  the  Bosnian  as  messenger  for 
letters  to  Theodore.  We  had  in  mind  the  alternative 
plan  of  a  stowaway  voyage  from  Constantinople  across 
the  Black  Sea,  and  we  intended  to  carry  it  out  if  John 
Willie  failed  us.  We  could  not  altogether  trust  him, 
for  he  continued  to  demand  small  loans  for  preliminary 
expenses.     He  showed  himself,  besides,  to  be  both  care- 


i68         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

less  and  heedless,  so  that  he  seemed  a  far  from  desirable 
companion  for  a  desperate  adventure.  We  found  that 
in  conversation  with  some  English  Tommies,  who  were 
patients  in  another  ward,  he  had  boasted  of  his  plan  to 
take  White  and  myself  to  Mudros;  and  we  feared  that 
any  day,  with  so  many  people  discussing  it,  the  story 
might  be  overheard  by  an  English-speaking  doctor. 

Possibly  that  is  what  happened,  for  I  noticed  that 
each  time  the  Bosnian  and  I  met  in  the  garden  we  were 
watched  closely.  One  of  the  patients — a  bearded, 
shifty-looking  Turk  with  one  arm  in  a  sling — made  it 
his  business  to  sit  on  the  same  bench,  and  to  listen  while 
I  pretended  to  give  instruction  in  the  proper  pronuncia- 
tion of  English.  Although  I  warned  John  Willie  to  be 
very  careful,  he  failed  to  realize  the  danger,  and  con- 
tinued to  make  us  all  the  more  conspicuous  by  talking 
in  a  low  voice. 

One  afternoon  he  approached  me  with  the  English 
grammar  open  in  his  hand,  and  pointed  to  a  folded  note 
which  lay  on  one  of  its  pages.  Two  Turkish  nurses 
were  passing.  Seeing  that  they  looked  at  the  book,  I 
turned  the  page  quickly  to  hide  the  note.  But  the 
nurses  had  apparently  seen  everything,  for  as  they  en- 
tered the  door  of  the  hospital  they  whispered  and  turned 
back.  A  few  minutes  later  the  doctor  on  duty  joined 
us  in  the  garden,  and  told  John  Willie  that  in  future  it 
would  be  forbidden  to  talk  with  British  prisoners. 

Yet  we  managed  three  further  meetings,  which  took 
place  at  the  wash-house  in  the  evening.  Then  John 
Willie  disappeared  suddenly  from  the  hospital,  and  we 
were  left  to  our  own  resources. 

We  still  had  his  maps  of  San  Stefano;  and  when  the 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  169 

period  set  for  the  escape  arrived  we  should  know  by 
means  of  a  pre-arranged  signal  if  he  was  still  prepared  to 
take  us  to  Mudros.  This  was  that  on  the  Sunday- 
morning  preceding  the  first  date  of  rendezvous  he  was 
to  fly  over  Psamatia  in  a  Nieuport  scout,  and  perform 
stunts. 

Meanwhile,  White  and  I  now  lacked  a  go-between. 
More  than  ever  it  was  necessary  that  one  or  both  of  us 
should  see  Theodore,  and  try  to  get  into  touch  with 
somebody  on  the  Ukranian  steamer  Batoum,  which 
I  could  see  from  our  ward  window,  moored  opposite 
the  Sultan's  Palace  of  Dolma  Bagtche. 

Every  request  that  we  might  be  permitted  to  visit 
the  shops  was  refused,  and  when  White  asked  to  see  a 
dentist  in  Constantinople  he  was  referred  to  the  military 
dentist  in  the  hospital.  We  had  almost  decided  to 
leave  for  Psamatia  before  our  time,  when  chance  pro- 
vided a  way  out. 

My  fame  as  a  teacher  of  English  had  spread  through 
the  hospital.  Aziz  Bey,  a  young  Turkish  doctor,  ar- 
rived at  my  bedside  one  morning,  with  text-books  and 
a  request  for  lessons.  I  agreed  willingly,  and  in  a  few 
days  became  quite  friendly  with  him  over  conjugations, 
and  references  to  the  green  socks  worn  by  the  son  of  the 
gardener. 

At  that  time  intelligent  Turks,  many  of  whom  hated 
the  Germans  worse  even  than  they  hated  the  Armen- 
ians, were  just  beginning  to  realize  that  the  AlHes  might 
well  win  the  war.  In  a  conversation  Aziz  Bey  referred 
to  this  possibility,  and  expressed  admiration  for  the 
British.  In  particular  he  praised  a  man  named  Meester 
Djavid  Loijorge,  who,  it  appeared,  was  the  principal 


I70         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

leader  of  the  Allies.  Djavid  Loijorge,  declared  Aziz 
Bey,  was  a  very  great  man  indeed. 

It  was  then  that,  without  any  forethought,  an  in- 
spiration came  to  me.  Remembering  the  fear  inspired 
in  all  Turks  by  such  despotic  ministers  as  Talaat  Pasha 
and  Enver  Pasha,  and  realizing  the  consideration  that 
would  be  paid  to  any  connection  of  the  British  Prime 
Minister,  whom  Aziz  Bey  would  regard  as  a  kind  of 
western  Talaat  Pasha,  I  announced : 

"Mr.  David  Lloyd  George  is  a  very  great  man  indeed, 
and  I  am  his  second  cousin." 

"Really?"  said  Aziz  after  a  taken-aback  pause,  with 
credulity  and  obvious  respect.  "I  never  expected  to 
learn  English  from  a  relative  of  Meester  Loijorge." 

I  hastened  to  explain  that  the  matter  was  confiden- 
tial, and  must  not  be  talked  about,  as  I  did  not  wish  the 
Turkish  Ministry  of  War  to  know  it.  I  relied  upon 
him,  as  a  friend,  to  keep  the  relationship  secret.  He 
promised,  and  as  far  as  I  know  only  broke  the  promise 
to  the  extent  of  telling  four  or  five  or  ten  or  twelve 
friends  of  his,  all  of  whom  treated  me  with  the  greatest 
consideration. 

Now  I  am  neither  a  second  cousin  of  Mr.  David 
Lloyd  George  nor  anxious  for  such  relationship.  But 
in  view  of  the  curious  circumstances,  I  was  bold  enough 
to  believe  that  the  statesman  would  not  have  objected 
to  the  claim.  It  needed  little  persuasion  to  induce 
Aziz  Bey  to  take  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  second  cousin 
into  Constantinople  whenever  he  had  a  free  after- 
noon; and  the  chief  doctor,  who  was  let  into  the  secret, 
gave  the  required  permission  readily  enough. 

Aziz  and  another  doctor,  whose  name  I  forget,  invited 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  171 

me  to  tea  at  the  Tokatlian  Hotel  and  the  Petits  Champs 
Gardens,  took  me  for  sails  on  the  Bosphorus  and  the 
Sea  of  Marmora,  and  introduced  me,  after  preliminary 
whisperings,  to  several  of  their  friends. 

Fortunately  for  me  the  news  from  the  Western  front 
was  then  taking  a  turn  for  the  better.  Hindenburg's 
great  drive  was  expended,  the  Germans  had  been 
thrown  back  across  the  Marne.  With  each  day's  tele- 
grams Mr.  Lloyd  George's  second  cousin  gained  further 
respect;  and  finally  he  was  given  permission  to  visit  the 
shops  of  Pera,  escorted  only  by  a  guard. 

I  walked  over  the  bridge  across  the  Golden  Horn  to 
the  Maritza  restaurant,  and  there  was  fortunate  enough 
to  find  Prince  Constantine  AvaloiF.  He  was  making  in- 
quiries, he  said,  among  the  officers  of  the  Batoum,  and 
he  thought  that,  for  a  suitable  bribe,  they  would  be 
quite  willing,  when  the  ship  left  for  Odessa,  to  take 
White  and  myself  as  stowaways.  The  Batoum  was 
expected  to  leave  in  about  three  weeks'  time. 

From  AvalofF,  who  was  still  in  touch  with  Yeats- 
Brown  and  Paul,  I  heard  of  their  adventures  after  es- 
caping from  Psamatia.  Yeats-Brown  was  still  at  large 
in  the  city,  dressed  in  girl's  clothes  lent  him  by  Miss 
Whittaker.  Paul,  from  whom  AvalofF  had  just  re- 
ceived a  letter,  was  trekking  toward  the  Gulf  of  Enos 
with  a  young  Greek  waiter  from  the  Maritza  as  guide. 
They  hoped  to  put  to  sea  from  near  Enos,  accompanied 
by  a  Greek  boatman.  Paul,  who  spoke  Arabic  fluently, 
was  dressed  as  an  Arab.  I  remembered  the  tuft  of 
unkempt  beard  which  he  had  been  growing  before  his 
escape,  and  now  saw  the  reason  for  it. 

Meanwhile,  a  party  that  included  Yeats-Brown  and 


172         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

two  Turkish  officers  was  waiting  in  Constantinople  on 
the  result  of  Paul's  attempt.  If  he  succeeded,  said 
Avaloff,  they  would  follow  in  his  tracks,  and  the  Greek 
boatman  would  return  to  the  Gulf  of  Enos  for  them. 

White  and  I  decided,  out  of  consideration  for  Miss 
Whittaker,  not  to  ask  her  for  any  help,  as  we  heard  that 
since  the  escape  of  Paul  and  Yeats-Brown  she  had  been 
closely  watched.  The  Turkish  police  suspected  her 
connivance,  especially  when  they  learned  that  she  had 
met  them  in  the  park  at  Stamboul  on  the  day  before 
they  left  Psamatia.  On  the  following  Sunday  morning, 
when,  for  the  first  time  in  three  weeks,  we  were  allowed 
to  attend  service  in  the  English  Church  at  Pera,  we 
took  care  never  to  look  in  her  direction,  not  knowing 
whether  one  of  Constantinople's  myriad  informers 
might  be  among  the  congregation. 

For  the  moment  our  greatest  problem  was  to  obtain 
funds.  We  hoped  to  find  a  banker  in  Mr.  S.,  the  Eng- 
lish merchant  who,  on  his  own  responsibility  and  at 
great  risk  to  himself,  had  several  times  cashed  large 
cheques  for  officers  who  wanted  to  escape.  We  knew 
several  Armenian  and  Greek  merchants,  but  these  we 
could  not  induce  to  supply  us  with  money,  as  we  had  no 
orthodox  cheque-books.  Such  cheques  as  we  cashed 
on  the  Dutch  Legation,  or  on  Mr.  S.,  were  written  on 
sheets  of  blank  paper. 

In  those  days  British  bombers  from  Mudros  and 
Imbros  were  visiting  Constantinople  every  fine  moonHt 
night,  and  spreading  great  terror  all  over  the  city. 
Whenever  an  alarm,  false  or  real,  was  given,  we  were 
wakened  by  the  firing  of  scores  of  machine-guns  planted 
on  the  near-by  roofs.     Turkish  soldiers,  who,  next  to 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  173 

food  and  wives,  love  fireworks  better  than  anything  on 
earth,  would  continue  firing  into  the  vacant  air  for 
hours,  until  all  their  ammunition  was  exhausted,  merely 
for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  rap-rapping.  Except  on 
one  occasion  the  bombs  themselves  did  little  damage; 
but  many  people  were  killed  by  the  chance-falling  bul- 
lets from  the  machine-guns. 

Sometimes  the  aeroplanes  came  during  the  daytime; 
and  then,  anxious  to  see  some  of  our  own  machines,  we 
would  race  into  the  garden  while  the  Turks  were  scurry- 
ing from  it  into  the  shelter  of  the  hospital.  Once  a  very 
fat  Turkish  pasha,  with  paunch  and  dignity  well  to  the 
fore,  paid  Gumuch  Souyou  a  visit  of  inspection  and  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  middle  of  the  garden  when  the  anti- 
aircraft firing  began.  He  cast  off  the  dignity,  and 
would  doubtless  have  liked  to  cast  off  the  paunch,  as 
he  raced  for  the  hospital  door  and  inquired  for  the  un- 
derground baths. 

The  Turkish  love  of  fireworks  was  useful  to  me  during 
the  Mohammedan  month  of  Ramazan.  At  each  sun- 
set guns  were  fired  and  puff-balls  were  exploded,  at 
interval  of  a  few  seconds,  all  round  Constantinople. 
Whenever  I  went  into  the  city  with  Aziz  Bey  I  ar- 
ranged that  we  should  be  at  sunset  near  Taxim  Gar- 
dens, opposite  which  some  puff-balls  were  exploded. 
On  the  first  explosion  I  started  violently  and  began  to 
tremble,  then  continued  to  swerve  and  shiver  at  each 
subsequent  noise.  Having  returned  to  Gumuch  Sou- 
you I  would  demand  aspirin  and  bromide  to  calm  my 
nerves,  which — as  Azid  Bey  could  bear  witness — must 
still  be  in  bad  condition.  This  I  did  because  a  few  days 
earlier  it  had  been  suggested  that  I  was  now  in  a  fit 


174         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

state  to  return  to  a  prisoners'  camp;  whereas  we  were 
still  a  fortnight  from  the  opening  date  of  rendezvous 
with  John  Willie  the  Bosnian,  and  from  the  time  when 
the  Batoum  might  be  expected  to  weigh  anchor. 

But  ill-luck  disbanded  the  queer  company  in  the  pris- 
oners' ward  of  Gumuch  Souyou  Hospital  early  in  the 
following  week.  On  the  Sunday  afternoon,  after  our 
visit  to  the  church,  White,  R.,  and  I  visited  some  of  my 
newly  made  friends,  in  a  street  behind  the  Tokatlian. 
Our  two  guards,  bribed  for  the  purpose  and  placated  with 
a  promise  that  we  would  return  to  them  in  an  hour's 
time,  loafed  outside  the  doorway.  One  of  the  city's 
innumerable  police  spies  saw  us  handing  over  a  fifty- 
piastre  note,  and  having  by  inquiries  discovered 
that  we  were  British  officers,  reported  the  incident  to 
the  War  Ofiice.  Next  morning  all  but  the  two  mad- 
men were  ordered  to  Psamatia,  at  an  hour's  notice. 

White  and  I  were  not  disappointed  at  the  change  for 
it  now  wanted  but  a  week  to  August  the  7th,  when  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  might  expect  to  meet 
John  Willie  the  Bosnian  at  the  corner  of  a  wood  outside 
San  Stefano  aerodrome.  Meanwhile,  there  remained 
the  urgent  necessity  of  cashing  some  cheques  on  Mr. 
S.;  for  only  ready  money  could  make  possible  our  es- 
cape, whether  we  flew  to  Mudros  or  crossed  the  Black 
Sea  as  stowaways  on  the  Batoum. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   THIRD   AND   FOURTH   FAILURES 

"The  clothes  of  the  Capitaine  Sir  Paul,"  demanded  with 
triumphant  satisfaction  Zikki  Bey,  the  one-eyed  Turk- 
ish officer  at  Psamatia  prison.  "The  Capitaine  Sir 
Paul  needs  the  clothes  he  left  here,  because  he  finds 
that  his  Arab  dress  is  unsuitable  for  the  Ministry  of 
War  prison.'* 

For  the  past  two  days  we  had  heard  rumours  of  PauFs 
recapture.  Yet  Zikki  Bey's  unwelcome  confirmation, 
as  he  broke  in  upon  a  bridge  party  one  evening,  was  a 
shock  to  us.  The  cards  were  abandoned  as  we  pre- 
pared clothes  and  food  to  be  sent  to  whatever  cell  of  the 
infamous  "Black  Hole  of  Constantinople"  Paul  might 
have  been  taken,  still  dressed  in  the  Arab  disguise  in 
which  he  tried  to  reach  the  Gulf  of  Enos. 

The  bad  news  was  an  especial  blow  to  four  of  us — 
White,  Fulton,  Stone,  and  myself — for  we  ourselves 
were  preparing  to  bolt  within  a  few  days.  Others 
regarded  it  more  philosophically.  Among  the  party 
was  a  certain  Colonel  who  deprecated  attempts  to  es- 
cape, because  they  reacted  on  one's  fellow-prisoners. 
He  also  contended  that  it  was  impossible  for  a  Britisher 
to  escape  from  Turkey. 

"I  knew  it,  I  knew  it,"  he  now  said;  "they've  nabbed 
Paul,  and  soon  they'll  nab  Yeats-Brown." 

1 75 


176         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

A  few  days  later,  having  heard  that  certain  others 
were  ready  to  flit,  the  Colonel  delivered  an  ultimatum. 
Already  the  restrictions  at  Psamatia  were  severe,  be- 
cause of  the  disappearance  of  Paul  and  Yeats-Brown. 
If  others  went,  he  contended,  life  would  not  be  worth 
living,  especially  for  middle-aged  colonels  who  had  pre- 
pared medical  histories  of  well-imagined  ailments  and 
were  hoping  to  see  their  names  on  the  list  of  prisoners 
to  be  exchanged  as  unfit. 

"After  the  war  I'll  heng,  draw,  and  quarter  the  next 
fellow  who  clears  off  from  Psamatia  while  Fm  here," 
he  told  Fulton,  Stone,  and  myself,  slapping  a  knee  that 
rested  on  the  garden  wall.  "A  successful  escape  can't 
be  done  in  Turkey,  and  it's  futile  to  try." 

Five  days  later  four  of  us  did  clear  off  from  Psamatia. 
The  war  is  over  long  since;  but  for  some  reason  or  other 
we  remain  unhenged,  undrawn,  and  unquartered.  As 
for  the  pronouncement  that  to  escape  from  Turkey  was 
impossible,  within  six  weeks  no  less  than  ten  men  proved 
the  contrary. 

White  and  I  had  been  at  Psamatia  for  ten  days.  Al- 
though expeditions  to  Stamboul  were  now  forbidden, 
we  managed  to  go  there  three  times,  on  the  pretence  of 
seeing  a  dentist.  We  visited  Theodore,  and  through 
him  received  from  Mr.  S.  about  three  hundred  Turkish 
pounds  in  return  for  foolscap-paper  cheques. 

After  very  careful  consideration  we  had  chosen  the 
plan  of  crossing  the  Black  Sea  as  stowaways,  in  pref- 
erence to  that  of  trusting  John  Willie  the  Bosnian 
aviator  to  fly  us  out  of  the  country.  Since  his  sudden 
disappearance  from  the  hospital  we  had  heard  no  defi- 
nite word  of  him;  unless,  indeed,  a  rumour  that  a  Bos- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         177 

nian  officer  was  in  the  Ministry  of  War  Prison  as  a 
political  suspect  applied  to  him. 

Moreover,  he  either  failed  to  give  us  the  signal  that 
he  was  ready,  or  gave  it  otherwise  than  according  to 
plan.  On  the  Sunday  morning  preceding  the  first 
date  of  the  rendezvous  outside  San  Stefano  aerodrome 
he  was  to  have  flown  over  Psamatia  on  a  Nieuport  scout 
and  performed  stunts  to  attract  our  attention.  An 
aeroplane  did  fly  over  Psamatia,  and  even  looped  the 
loop  several  times;  but  it  was  a  big  two-seater  instead 
of  a  little  Nieuport.  Under  the  circumstances  we  de- 
cided not  to  risk  losing  the  comparative  certainty  of  a 
slow  journey  to  freedom  via  Russia  for  the  dubious  un- 
certainty of  a  quick  flight  to  Mudros. 

Fulton  and  Stone  were  glad  enough  to  inherit  our 
arrangements  with  John  Willie,  and  to  take  the  chance 
of  meeting  him  at  San  Stefano.  Now  that  Paul  was 
captured  they  were  at  a  loose  end,  for  if  he  had  suc- 
ceeded they  would  have  followed  in  his  footsteps  by 
joining  the  second  party  that  was  to  make  for  the  Gulf 
of  Enos.  I  gave  them  my  map  of  the  aerodrome,  show- 
ing the  place  of  rendezvous,  and  also  a  non-committal 
note,  scribbled  in  German,  which  would  explain  their 
identity  if  they  met  the  Bosnian. 

For  White  and  myself  a  passage  on  the  tramp  steamer 
Batoum  was  definitely  arranged.  Prince  AvalofF  had 
shown  himself  to  be  a  too-talkative  intermediary;  but 
White  met  a  more  useful  man  in  one  Lieutenant  Vladi- 
mir Stepanovitch  Wilkowsky,  a  Polish  aviator  whom  he 
had  known  at  Afion-kara-Hissar,  and  who  was  also 
planning  an  early  escape.  Unlike  us,  the  Russians 
were  still  allowed   into   Stamboul  with  their  guards. 


178         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Having  placated  his  own  particular  guard  with  a  bribe, 
Wilkowsky  often  crossed  the  Golden  Horn  alone.  Sev- 
eral times  he  met  TitofF,  the  Batoum's  chief  engineer, 
in  cafes  at  Galata;  and  finally,  after  much  bargaining, 
completed  arrangements  whereby  White  and  I  were  to 
travel  as  stowaways.  He  himself  was  also  planning 
an  escape  to  Odessa. 

Zikki  Bey  warned  us  that  everybody  at  Psamatia 
would  be  sent  into  Anatolia  very  shortly.  White,  Ful- 
ton, Stone,  and  I  went  into  conference,  and  decided  to 
forestall  the  removal  by  making  our  dash  two  days  later, 
on  August  the  twenty-first.  This  suited  Fulton  and 
Stone,  for  it  would  bring  them  to  the  period  named  by 
the  Bosnian  aviator.  As  for  White  and  myself,  a  hiding- 
place  in  Pera,  where  we  could  remain  until  the  Batoum 
sailed,  had  been  arranged  by  TitofF.  A  Russian  civil- 
ian was  to  conceal  us;  and,  after  giving  our  guards  the 
slip,  we  were  to  meet  him  by  appointment  at  a  beer- 
house in  the  Rue  de  Galata. 

On  the  morning  of  July  the  twenty-first  all  four  of 
us  left  Psamatia  by  the  ten  o'clock  train  on  the  little 
suburban  railway  that  runs  between  Stamboul  and  San 
Stefano.  It  would  be  less  difficult  to  dodge  the  guards 
if  we  were  in  two  parties,  so  Fulton  and  Stone  chose  an 
optician  as  their  excuse  for  a  trip  to  Stamboul,  while 
White  and  I  were  to  visit  our  old  friend  the  dentist. 
Our  real  destination  was  the  beerhouse  in  the  Rue  de 
Galata,  that  of  the  other  pair  being  the  small  wood  out- 
side San  Stefano. 

We  split  up  into  twos  as  the  train  steamed  up,  Ful- 
ton's farewell  being  "Good-bye,  old  man.  See  you  in 
the  Ministry  of  War  to-morrow!"     He  and  Stone  went 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  179 

into  a  compartment  near  the  engine,  while  White  and 
I  chose  the  rear  end  of  the  train.  All  of  us  hoped  to 
lose  our  guards  among  the  crowd  at  Stamboul  station. 

Ten  minutes  before  we  should  have  reached  Stam- 
boul station  the  god  of  coincidence  sent  an  extraordi- 
nary opportunity.  Just  beyond  Koum-kapou  the 
train  rounded  a  sharp  comer,  and  ran  into  some  empty 
trucks  that  were  stationary  on  the  line.  There  was  a 
succession  of  clangs,  a  violent  shock,  and  many  a  jolt 
and  jar,  mingled  with  screams,  gasps,  and  frightened 
confusion. 

One  of  the  two  guards  with  White  and  I  fell  on  to 
an  iron  platform  between  two  carriages.  The  other, 
unfortunately,  kept  both  his  balance  and  his  head.  I 
was  standing  a  yard  in  front  of  him,  behind  White. 

"Now's  our  chance.  I'm  off!"  said  White  as  he 
pushed  his  way  through  the  struggling  passengers  to 
the  farther  end  of  the  compartment.  I  began  to  follow, 
but  seeing  that  the  guard  was  already  suspicious  of 
White's  movements,  I  slowed  down,  and  pretended  to 
pacify  a  nervous  woman,  thus  blocking  the  guard's 
advance  and  allowing  White  more  room. 

"He's  after  you,"  I  called,  as  White  turned  his  head. 

In  the  confusion  White  misunderstood  these  words 
as  "I'm  with  you."  Thinking  that  I  was  ready  to 
follow  him,  he  edged  his  way  to  the  steps  at  the  far  end 
of  the  compartment.  The  guard,  meanwhile,  shouted 
a  warning  to  his  companion,  who  had  picked  himself 
up  and  left  the  train.  This  second  guard  ran  toward 
White  along  the  railway  embankment. 

White  was  wearing  a  cap.  In  his  inside  pocket  he 
had  a  felt  hat,  his  idea  being  to  change  headgear  in  a 


i8o         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

crowd,  so  that  the  guards,  looking  for  a  man  with  a  cap, 
would  fail  to  notice  him.  I  now  saw  him  fling  the  cap 
under  the  carriage,  jamb  the  felt  hat  on  his  head,  de- 
scend from  the  train  and  jump  down  the  embankment. 
The  guard  with  me  yelled,  while  the  second  Turkish 
soldier  leaped  down  the  embankment,  clutched  at 
White,  and  almost  caught  him. 

White  dodged  clear,  and  the  last  I  saw  of  him  that 
day  was  as  he  raced  down  a  narrow,  winding  street, 
pulling  and  pushing  out  of  his  way  the  Turks  and  Greeks 
who  streamed  in  the  opposite  direction,  towards  the  scene 
of  the  collision.  Close  behind  him  the  guard  gave  chase, 
while  commanding  passers-by  to  stop  the  British  prisoner. 

I  jumped  down  the  embankment,  partly  in  a  desper- 
ate attempt  to  elude  the  other  guard,  and  partly  to 
create  a  diversion  for  White.  At  the  bottom  of  the 
slope  I  twisted  an  ankle  and  fell.  My  guard  dropped 
on  top  of  me.  We  scrambled  to  our  feet,  myself  un- 
stable on  the  weak  ankle,  and  the  Turk  clutching  my 
right  arm  with  both  his  hands.  Under  the  circum- 
stances it  was  useless  to  struggle.  I  remained  quiet, 
while  the  guard  called  to  his  aid  a  passing  soldier. 

I  stood  at  the  bottom  of  the  embankment,  gripped 
painfully  by  the  two  Turks.  The  moments  that  fol- 
lowed were  indescribably  bitter.  White  was  probably 
at  liberty,  with  the  glorious  prospect  of  a  successful 
escape.  I  had  failed,  for  the  third  time  since  capture, 
and  was  probably  booked  for  a  cell  under  the  Turkish 
Ministry  of  War.  My  one  consolation,  my  one  hope, 
was  in  the  wads  of  money  distributed  among  various 
parts  of  my  clothing.  These  would  provide  a  chance 
tp  bribe  the  guards  into  silence,  leaving  me  free  for 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  i8i 

another  attempt  before  the  British  prisoners  at  Psama- 
tia  were  moved  to  Anatolia. 

The  three  of  us  remained  thus  for  ten  minutes,  an 
unregarded  island  in  the  sea  of  people  that  surged  round 
the  derailed  coaches.  The  shaken  passengers  were 
climbing  down  the  slope,  the  new  arrivals  were  climb- 
ing up  it  to  see  the  wreckage.  A  few  yards  away  first, 
aid  was  being  administered  to  an  injured  woman. 

Presently  I  saw  Fulton  and  Stone,  with  their  guards 
approaching  from  the  front  of  the  train.  They  stopped 
short  on  seeing  me  held  by  two  soldiers.  I  shook  my 
head  and  signalled  them  not  to  come  any  nearer,  where- 
upon they  turned  away. 

The  guard  who  had  chased  White  returned,  alter- 
nately cursing  and  invoking  the  wrath  of  Allah  on  all 
Englishmen.  In  his  anger  he  took  off  his  cloth  hat, 
threw  it  on  the  ground,  shook  his  fist  at  me,  and  said, 
"English  very  bad!" 

Although  White  had  eluded  him  he  did  not  give  up 
hope  at  once,  but  led  us  through  a  maze  of  alleys  and 
streets,  peering  forlornly  into  the  doorways  of  shops 
and  houses  and  through  the  gratings  of  cellars.  Fin- 
ally he  held  a  conference  with  his  companions,  and  de- 
termined to  take  me  to  Koum-kapou  police  station. 
My  ankle,  I  was  glad  to  find,  had  been  ricked  only 
slightly,  and  was  now  normal  again. 

"English  very  bad,"  said  the  man  who  had  chased 
White,  in  the  clipped  Turkish  used  between  prisoners 
and  guards.  "We" — pointing  to  himself  and  my  own 
guard — "prison.     Prison  very  bad.     No  food." 

"Here  is  food  for  prison,"  I  consoled  him,  handing 
over  two  Turkish  pounds. 


iSz         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

The  sight  of  money  partly  pacified  them,  and  their 
anger  cooled.  Soon  they  were  in  a  fit  state  of  mind  to 
talk  baksheesh,  that  touchstone  of  the  Turkish  char- 
acter. 

I  produced  ten  more  banknotes,  each  of  one  Turk- 
ish pound.  Again  using  pidgin-Turkish,  with  many 
an  expressive  gesture,  I  offered  them  to  the  guards,  on 
condition  that  when  we  reached  the  police  station  they 
would  say  that  although  White  had  escaped  I  made  no 
attempt  to  do  so. 

The  matter  needed  several  minutes  of  explanation 
before  misunderstandings  were  cleared  up,  so  that  we 
withdrew  into  a  side  street.  The  two  guards  needed 
little  persuasion  to  make  them  accept.  Thereupon  the 
third  man  (the  soldier  who  helped  to  hold  me  at  the 
bottom  of  the  embankment)  demanded  a  share.  To 
satisfy  him  I  was  forced  to  produce  a  further  sum  of 
five  Turkish  pounds.     He  saluted  and  left  us. 

The  two  guards  carried  on  an  animated  talk  for  some 
time  longer,  and,  as  far  as  I  could  understand,  discussed 
what  tale  to  the  police  would  show  them  in  the  best 
light.  They  decided,  apparently,  not  to  admit  having 
seen  White  escape  and  let  him  give  them  the  sHp,  but 
to  claim  that  he  vanished  when  we  were  all  knocked 
down  by  the  collision. 

I  remembered  that  the  food  supplies  in  my  pockets 
might  be  incriminating  evidence.  I  had,  also,  a  danger- 
ous slip  of  paper,  on  which  Wilkowsky  had  drawn  a  plan 
of  the  Galata  beerhouse  in  which  I  was  to  meet  Titoff's 
Russian  friend.  This  I  disposed  of  by  tearing  it  into 
shreds  behind  my  back,  and  dropping  the  fragments, 
a  few  at  a  time,  as  in  a  paper  chase. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  183 

The  packets  of  food  were  rather  more  difficult  to  lose. 
There  was  a  tin  of  Oxo  cubes,  which  I  flung  surrepti- 
tiously on  to  a  dust-heap.  Some  sticks  of  bivouac 
chocolate  I  left  on  a  convenient  windowsill.  The 
worst  problem  was  a  small  bag  containing  a  mixture 
of  cocoa  and  grape-nuts,  taken  from  one  of  White's 
parcels  from  home.  I  could  scarcely  throw  this  away 
unobserved;  and  the  police  station  was  already  in  sight. 

A  woman  stood  in  the  doorway,  and  gazed  at  us. 
As  we  brushed  past  her  on  the  narrow  pavement,  I  took 
the  bag  from  my  pocket,  dumped  it  into  her  hand,  and 
moved  on  without  a  word  or  a  sign.  When,  from  a  few 
yards  ahead,  I  looked  back,  she  had  opened  the  bag 
and  was  staring  in  wide-eyed  surprise  at  the  cocoa — 
then  quite  unobtainable  in  Constantinople — ^which  had 
fallen  as  from  heaven. 

The  guards  told  a  rambling  tale  to  the  poHce  officer, 
who  took  notes  of  their  description  of  White  and  sent 
out  three  gendarmes  to  search  the  streets  for  him.  After- 
ward I  was  taken  into  an  inner  room  and  searched. 
Nothing  was  found  to  brand  me  as  a  suspect.  The 
pockets  were  quite  empty;  and  my  larger  banknotes — 
one  of  a  hundred  Turkish  pounds,  one  of  fifty,  and  one 
of  twenty-five — ^were  undiscovered,  being  sewn  into 
suspenders  and  braces. 

Finally,  as  a  result  of  the  twelve  Turkish  pounds' 
worth  of  good  character  given  me  by  the  guards,  I 
continued  the  journey  to  the  military  dentist  in  Stam- 
boul,  after  a  guard  had  telephoned  the  news  of  White's 
disappearance  to  Psamatia. 

Desperate  after  my  failure  in  face  of  White's  success, 
I  made  an  unwise  bolt  for  freedom  across  the  ruins  of  a 


i84  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

recent  fire.  Before  the  guards  had  recovered  from 
their  surprise,  I  reached  a  half-demoHshed  wall  at  the 
far  end  of  an  open  space.  I  shinned  over  the  wall,  and 
found  myself  in  a  blind  alley.  Straight  ahead  was  a 
house;  and  another  building  cut  off  the  exit  to  the  right. 
To  the  left  was  a  bare  wall,  too  high  to  be  climbed.  I 
turned  round,  walked  back  to  meet  the  now  furious 
guards,  and  handed  them  another  pound  note  apiece. 
They  gasped;  but  a  sense  of  humour  dissolved  their 
rage  into  laughter. 

We  continued  to  walk  toward  Stamboul,  each  of 
my  arms  now  being  held  tightly.  Several  times  I 
heard  the  guards  mention  Theodore,  so  that  I  was  not 
surprised  when  they  led  me  into  a  small  cafe  near  the 
quay  (the  Maritza  restaurant  being  then  out  of 
bounds  for  prisoners),  where  one  of  them  stayed  with 
me  while  the  other  fetched  the  Greek  waiter  to  act  as 
interpreter. 

"First,"  said  Theodore  after  he  had  Hstened  to  the 
guards*  story,  "you  must  give  parole  for  the  rest  of  the 
day." 

I  agreed  readily  enough;  and  over  pots  of  beer — I 
only  met  one  Mohammedan  guard  whose  religious  prin- 
ciples prevented  him  from  accepting  alcoholic  drink 
in  a  secluded  spot — the  party  became  more  amiable. 
The  Turks'  object  in  fetching  Theodore  was  that  he 
might  explain  to  me  a  story  which  would  saddle  them 
with  a  minimum  of  blame  for  White's  escape.  If  I 
corroborated  this  yarn  they  would  agree  not  to  mention 
my  own  misdeeds  to  the  commandant  at  Psamatia. 
Again  I  accepted. 

We  discussed  and  amended  the  story,  which  in  its 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         185 

final  form  was  divided  into  four  parts — (i)  a  train  col- 
lision; (2)  a  shock  that  knocked  the  four  of  us  over  and 
separated  guards  from  prisoners;  (3)  the  confusion;  (4) 
the  discovery  that  White  had  disappeared,  unknown  to 
the  rest  of  the  party. 

Through  Theodore  I  now  offered  the  guards  fifty 
Turkish  pounds  if  they  would  turn  their  backs  and  let 
me  walk  out  alone.  They  refused  regretfully,  saying 
that  to  lose  two  prisoners  in  one  day  would  be  as  much 
as  their  lives  were  worth.  They  reminded  me  of  my 
promise,  and  we  left  the  cafe  for  the  dentist's  surgery, 
where  I  was  obliged  to  allow  a  perfectly  sound  tooth 
to  be  stopped. 

Back  at  Psamatia  I  found  all  the  prisoners  shut  up 
in  their  rooms.  The  Turkish  commandant  was  raving 
with  rage.  As  we  entered  the  arched  doorway  he 
rushed  from  his  office,  and  boxed  the  guards'  ears. 
They  bore  it  without  a  sound,  comforted  no  doubt 
by  the  six  Turkish  pounds  which  each  of  them  had  con- 
cealed in  his  clothing. 

We  told  our  separate  but  corroborative  tales,  how 
we  had  been  knocked  over  by  the  shock  and  missed 
White  in  the  confusion.  White  was  queer  in  the  head, 
I  explained;  and  it  was  possible  that  having  been  fur- 
ther unbalanced  by  the  collision  he  wandered  away, 
not  knowing  where  he  was  going.  The  commandant, 
ready  to  clutch  at  anything  that  might  save  his  official 
knuckles  from  a  rapping,  affected  to  take  the  suggestion 
seriously,  and  embodied  it  in  his  report.  He  affected 
to  hope  that  White  would  recover  memory  and  senses, 
and  return  of  his  own  free  will. 

Later    that    evening   the  commandant,   after  tele- 


i86         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

phonic  communication  with  the  Ministry  of  War, 
ordered  all  the  British  prisoners  to  prepare  for  a  journey 
into  AnatoUa  on  the  following  day.  With  Fulton  and 
Stone,  who  returned  from  their  visit  to  the  optician 
without  having  had  a  chance  to  escape,  I  conferred  on 
how  we  could  get  clear  in  the  short  time  left  to  us. 

Fulton  and  Stone  planned  to  leave  the  prison-house 
during  the  night,  but  I  decided  to  wait  until  morning. 
They  wanted  to  leave  Constantinople  for  San  Stefano, 
whereas  I  wanted  to  remain  in  the  city;  and  if  I  es- 
caped before  dawn  I  should  have  nowhere  to  spend  the 
night  hours,  and  so  lay  myself  open  to  the  curiosity  of 
gendarmes.  In  any  case,  I  was  uncertain  whether  or 
not  my  parole,  given  to  the  guards,  ought  to  extend  till 
midnight. 

The  three  of  us  occupied  the  same  bedroom.  A 
small  window  from  the  adjoining  lavatory  opened  on  to 
a  drainpipe.  It  was  decided  that  Fulton  should  climb 
up  this  pipe  to  the  roof,  until  he  was  firmly  established 
on  the  gutter.  Stone  would  hand  him  a  rope  and  their 
boots,  and  then  himself  climb  the  drainpipe.  They 
would  crawl  along  a  succession  of  roofs,  keeping  in  the 
shadow,  until  they  reached  the  top  of  a  house  about 
fifty  yards  distant,  which  overlooked  a  side  street  out- 
side the  camp  sentries'  range  of  vision.  Having  fas- 
tened the  rope  to  a  chimney  or  to  some  other  stable 
object,  they  could  let  themselves  down  to  the  road 
when  it  was  conveniently  deserted,  with  the  boots 
slung  round  their  necks.  They  planned  to  tramp  the 
fifteen  miles  to  San  Stefano  during  the  night,  leaving 
Constantinople  via  the  gate  at  Yedi-kuh. 

That  evening  the  sentries  in  the  yard,  stimulated 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  ^       187 

by  White's  escape,  were  more  alert  than  usual.  Another 
drawback  was  the  full  moon,  which  for  some  hours  lit 
up  the  corner  outside  the  window.  Not  until  just  be- 
fore midnight  were  conditions,  in  the  form  of  shadow 
and  an  absent  guard,  suitable  for  the  adventure. 

With  feet  covered  only  by  a  pair  of  thick  socks  Ful- 
ton climbed  through  the  tiny  window,  gripped  a  bend 
of  the  drainpipe,  and  made  use  of  a  metal  joint  for  foot- 
hold. Stone,  holding  the  rope  and  the  boots,  watched 
from  the  window.  Fulton  gripped  the  gutter  and  was 
beginning  to  haul  himself  up  when — crunch! — the  top 
of  the  flimsy  drainpipe  was  severed  from  the  roof  by 
his  weight,  and  he  fell. 

Instinctively  he  released  his  feet  from  the  joint  on 
which  they  had  been  resting.  He  thus  managed  to 
land  on  all  fours  in  the  yard,  about  fifteen  feet  below. 

The  noise,  however,  was  startling.  Stone  and  I  ex- 
pected every  second  that  Fulton  would  be  discovered, 
but  with  great  presence  of  mind  he  jumped  up  and  ran 
into  our  room,  through  the  near-by  door,  before  any- 
body had  time  to  investigate. 

An  upper  window  opened  noisily,  and  from  it  a  Turk- 
ish officer,  awakened  by  the  sound  of  Fulton's  fall, 
yelled  to  the  guards.  Within  five  minutes  the  yard  was 
full  of  a  disordered  commotion.  An  excited  group  col- 
lected round  the  portion  of  the  drainpipe  which  was 
lying  on  the  ground. 

Meanwhile,  Fulton  and  Stone  had  torn  ofF  their  outer 
clothing.  When  Zikki-Bey  paid  us  a  visit  of  suspicious 
inspection,  the  three  of  us  were  seemingly  asleep.  Soon 
afterward  the  chattering  and  clattering  in  the  yard 
subsided.     Fortunately   a   strong  wind   was   blowing. 


i88         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

and  we  heard  afterward  that  the  Turks  thought  a  vio- 
lent gust  must  have  dislodged  the  drainpipe. 

With  nerves  on  edge  and  all  our  faculties  keyed  up, 
there  was  little  sleep  for  the  rest  of  that  night.  Our 
only  remaining  chance  was  to  escape  next  morning, 
when  we  passed  through  the  city  on  the  way  to  the  rail* 
way  station. 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  GREEK  WAITRESS,  A  GERMAN  BEERHOUSE,  A  TURKISH 
POLICEMAN,  AND   A  RUSSIAN    SHIP 

At  HALF-PAST  eleven  of  a  scorching  morning  every 
Britisher  at  Psamatia  marched  away  from  the  prison- 
house.  As  a  result  of  the  furore  that  followed  White's 
escape,  twenty-four  hours  earlier,  the  Turks  were  send- 
ing us  into  the  interior  of  Anatolia.  About  fifty  Tom- 
mies, with  a  detachment  of  guards,  left  first;  and  we — 
the  fifteen  officer  prisoners — followed  twenty  yards 
behind  them.  In  the  rear  was  the  Turkish  officer  in 
charge,  with  a  screen  of  six  guards,  who  showed  fixed 
bayonets,  loaded  rifles,  and  smiling  ferocity. 

Three  of  us — Fulton,  Stone,  and  myself — had  made 
up  our  minds  to  sHp  away,  or  if  needs  be  dash  away, 
before  the  party  entrained  at  Haidar  Pasha,  on  the 
Asiatic  shore  of  the  Sea  of  Marmora.  The  Turkish 
officer  rather  expected  somebody  to  make  an  attempt, 
but  knew  not  whom  to  suspect  in  particular.  A  little 
deduction  might  have  told  him,  for,  except  F.,  the 
"do-or-die  trio'* — as  the  others  had  named  us — ^were 
the  only  officers  wearing  civiHan  clothes,  and  one  would 
as  easily  have  suspected  F.  of  an  ambition  to  become 
the  Sultan's  chief  eunuch  as  of  an  ambition  to  escape. 

Some  of  the  Tommies  were  disabled  or  still  sick.  As 
they  trudged  through  the  hot  streets,  oppressed   by 

189 


I90         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

heavy  packages  and  the  relentless  heat,  their  backs 
bent  lower  and  lower  and  they  began  to  straggle.  Fi- 
nally one  man  fainted.  While  he  was  being  carried  into 
the  shade  the  officers  obtained  permission  to  reheve  the 
weakest  Tommies  of  their  kits.  Yet  again,  the  Turks 
ought  to  have  discovered  the  escape  party,  for  the 
others  saw  to  it  that  Fulton,  Stone,  and  I  should  not  be 
burdened  with  the  parcels. 

Meanwhile,  the  mid-day  heat  grew  more  intense,  and 
the  Tommies  more  exhausted.  It  became  necessary, 
every  half  mile  or  so,  to  rest  for  a  few  minutes  on  the 
shady  side  of  the  street. 

The  "do-or-die  trio"  looked  to  these  halts  for  their 
opportunity;  but  always  the  guards  hemmed  us  in  too 
closely  for  any  chance  of  a  break-away.  A  combined 
effort  seemed  impossible,  so  that  the  three  of  us  ac- 
cepted the  maxim  of  each  man  for  himself.  Even  to 
talk  with  each  other  on  the  march  was  imprudent,  for 
earnest  conversation,  like  earnest  looks,  must  have  at- 
tracted attention. 

The  first  move  was  made  by  Fulton.  We  had  halted 
on  a  narrow  pavement,  in  the  suburb  of  Yeni-Kapou. 
There  followed  a  short  interval  of  lounging  repose,  dur- 
ing which  we  sipped  at  water-bottles,  while  the  Turkish 
officer  did  his  best  to  fraternize.  Turning  round  cas- 
ually, in  a  search  for  possible  opportunities,  I  saw  Ful- 
ton sliding  into  a  little  booth  of  a  shop,  and  then,  with 
head  bent  over  the  counter,  looking  at  postcards.  As 
far  as  I  could  gather  none  of  the  guards  had  noticed  him. 
He  killed  time  by  calling  for  more  and  ever  more  post- 
cards. 

Five  minutes  later  the  order  to  continue  was  given. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         191 

We  rose  and  arranged  our  packs,  while  Ms.  stood  in 
front  of  the  shop  window,  so  as  to  hide  Fulton.  But  a 
Turkish  sergeant  counted  us,  and  finding  our  number 
short  by  one,  became  excited  and  aggressive  as  he 
wandered  around  and  checked  his  figures.  Fulton's 
discovery  was  then  inevitable.  He  made  the  best  of 
things,  when  observed  through  the  window,  by  choos- 
ing and  paying  for  several  postcards  and  leaving  the 
shop  indifferently,  as  if  he  had  entered  it  with  no  ul- 
terior purpose.  The  Turkish  officer  looked  his  suspi- 
cion, but  made  no  comments. 

Stone's  turn  came  next.  At  Koum-kapou  we  rested 
below  the  wall  of  an  old  palace.  When,  as  he  thought, 
nobody  was  looking.  Stone  slipped  through  a  side- 
entrance  and  sat  down  against  a  doorway  in  the  left- 
hand  corner  of  the  courtyard.  A  guard  darted  after 
him,  and  dragged  him  back  to  us.  The  Turkish  offi- 
cer saw  the  commotion  and  wanted  explanations; 
whereupon  Stone  complained  that  although  he  went 
into  the  courtyard  merely  to  find  shelter  from  the  sun 
the  guard  had  hustled  him  rudely.  The  watchful  guard 
was  reprimanded  for  want  of  politeness. 

We  passed  from  Koum-kapou  to  Stamboul,  where 
crowds  of  befezzed  men  and  veiled  women  gathered 
at  every  crossing  to  gaze  their  dull-eyed  curiosity. 
Here,  in  the  mazed  streets  of  the  Turkish  quarter,  I 
again  petitioned  Providence  for  some  sort  of  a  diver- 
sion, under  cover  of  which  we  might  run.  But  nothing 
happened.  The  guards  surrounded  us  as  if  we  had 
been  wayward  pigs  being  driven  to  the  slaughter-house, 
and  handled  their  bayonets  suggestively. 

At  one  point  we  could  see  the  Maritza,  down  a  side 


192         EASTERN  NIGHTS-AND  FLIGHTS 

turning.  We  moved  along  the  tram-lines  toward  the 
big  bridge.  Then,  after  a  moment's  delay  at  the  toll- 
gate,  we  passed  over  the  Golden  Horn. 

Three-quarters  of  the  way  across  the  bridge  the 
Turkish  sergeant  leading  us  switched  the  column-head 
to  some  steps  descending  to  the  ferry  stage  for  the  Hai- 
dar  Pasha  steamboats.  The  Tommies  were  placed  at 
one  end  of  the  wooden  stage,  with  a  separate  group  of 
guards,  while  the  Turkish  officer,  who  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  journey  had  shown  a  desire  to  make  him- 
self pleasant,  took  the  officer-prisoners  into  a  little  cafe 
for  coohng  drinks.  We  talked  idly  to  the  Greek  wait- 
ress who  served  us;  but  at  the  moment  I  was  too  pre- 
occupied to  notice  anything  about  her,  except  that  she 
was  plump  and  obliging. 

Later  we  were  grouped  some  distance  to  the  left  of 
the  cafe,  in  a  corner  of  the  ferry  stage  opposite  that  oc- 
cupied by  the  Tommies.  There  we  remained  for  nearly 
an  hour  in  the  broiling  sun,  while  waiting  for  the  steamer 
which  was  to  take  us  from  Europe  to  Asia.  People 
surged  on  and  off  the  ferryboats  that  moored  opposite 
us  from  time  to  time;  but  never  once  did  the  guards 
relax  enough  to  allow  anybody  to  fade  into  the  crowd. 
The  chances  were  made  even  more  desperate  by  some 
German  soldiers,  who  leaned  over  the  bridge-rails  above 
us  and  watched  the  changing  scene. 

**Our  ship  comes,"  announced  the  Turkish  officer  at 
last,  pointing  out  to  sea  in  the  direction  of  Prinkipo 
Island.  In  five  minutes'  time,  I  knew,  the  party  would  be 
on  board  that  steamer;  and  once  aboard  it  I  should  have 
left  behind  all  hope  of  escape  from  captivity  in  Turkey. 
Only  five  minutes!    Had  the  gods  left  no  loop-hole .^ 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  193 

I  searched  among  the  crowd  in  every  direction,  ready 
to  take  advantage  of  the  wildest  and  slimmest  scheme 
that  might  suggest  itself. 

I  heard  Pappas  EfFendi  and  Fulton  asking  the  Turk- 
ish officer  if  they  might  return  to  fetch  some  kit,  which 
had  been  left  in  the  cafe.  The  Turk  nodded,  and  sent 
them  away,  escorted  by  his  sergeant.  I  also  had  left 
some  kit,  I  claimed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  just  as 
Pappas  Effendi  and  Fulton  were  leaving  us. 

"All  right,"  said  the  Turk,  ** follow  your  comrades." 

In  full  view  of  the  rest  of  the  party  I  walked  after 
Pappas  EfFendi  and  Fulton,  and  while  keeping  close  to 
the  sergeant,  as  if  to  show  I  was  under  his  wing,  took 
care  to  remain  behind  him  so  that  he  himself  should 
know  nothing  of  my  presence. 

The  little  group  entered  the  cafe,  first  Pappas  EfFendi 
and  Fulton,  then  the  sergeant,  and  finally  myself. 

Inside  the  doorway  was  the  plump  waitress,  who 
smiled  affably.  I  stayed  near  her  while  the  other  three 
passed  to  the  inside  room,  where  we  had  been  seated 
earlier.  I  fingered  my  lips  warningly,  and  in  soft- 
spoken  French  asked  where  I  could  hide. 

The  waitress  gave  no  answer,  but  without  showing 
the  least  excitement  or  even  surprise,  half  opened  a 
folding  doorway  that  led  to  the  kitchen.  I  planted 
myself  behind  it,  while  she  entered  the  inner  room  and 
talked  to  the  Turkish  sergeant. 

A  minute  later  I  heard  the  three  of  them — Pappas 
EfFendi,  Fulton,  and  the  guard — ^tramp  past  my  doorway 
and  out  to  the  ferry  stage.  Just  then  the  arriving 
steamer  hooted. 

"Now,"  said  this  waitress-in-a-million,  "they  have 


194         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

gone,  and  so  must  you.  The  Turks  may  come  any 
moment,  and  if  they  find  you  here  I  shall  suffer  more 
than  you." 

"Goodbye,  and  a  million  thanks,"  I  said,  fervently, 
and  walked  into  the  open. 

Without  even  turning  my  head  to  see  whether  the 
disappearance  was  known  I  swerved  to  the  right,  and, 
taking  great  care  not  to  attract  attention  by  walking 
in  haste,  passed  up  the  long  line  of  steps  leading  to  the 
bridge.  I  continued  to  look  straight  ahead,  but  I 
could  sense  the  presence,  only  a  few  yards  away,  of 
the  German  soldiers  who  loitered  by  the  railings.  For- 
tunately, several  other  people  were  moving  up  or  down 
the  steps;  and  dressed  as  I  was  in  a  civilian  suit  ob- 
tained from  the  Dutch  Legation,  the  Germans  paid  no 
more  attention  to  me  than  to  them. 

I  reached  the  pavement,  and  still  not  daring  to  look 
behind,  crossed  the  tram-lines  to  the  opposite  side  of 
the  bridge.  Then  only  did  I  turn  round  to  find  out 
whether  I  were  followed. 

Everything  was  normal.  Not  one  of  the  idlers  who 
lined  the  railings  had  noticed  me;  the  usual  traffic  and 
the  usual  crowds  ebbed  and  flowed  across  the  bridge; 
the  sun  shone.     I  lit  a  cigarette  and  walked  eastward. 

Having  crossed  the  circus  of  streets  at  the  Galata 
end  of  the  bridge,  I  turned  to  the  right  and  made  for 
the  Rue  de  Galata.  At  the  corner  I  looked  back  again. 
To  my  very  great  relief,  I  found  that  I  was  still  not 
followed. 

I  was  conscious  of  an  intense  exhilaration  as,  free  at 
last,  I  rubbed  elbows  with  the  crowd  of  nondescript 
Levantines.     It  was  the  first  time  for  months  that  I 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  195 

had  ever  walked  the  streets  without  the  burden  of  an 
oppressive  consciousness  that  a  yard  or  two  to  the  rear 
was  an  animal  of  a  Turkish  soldier.  That  sense  of  al- 
ways being  followed  and  spied  upon  and  menaced  and 
held  on  a  leash  had  weighed  so  much  on  my  mind  that 
I  had  come  to  look  upon  a  guard  in  the  same  light  as  an 
old-time  convict  must  have  looked  upon  the  lead  ball 
chained  to  his  foot.  The  sense  of  freedom  from  this 
incubus  was  glorious. 

I  was  worried  about  my  chances  of  meeting  the  un- 
known Russian  who  had  agreed  to  hide  White  and  my- 
self. According  to  the  plan  detailed  to  me  some  hours 
earlier  by  Vladimir  Wilkowsky,  he  was  to  wait  for  me 
in  a  German  beerhouse  from  two  o'clock  to  four.  I 
had  been  unable  to  escape  in  time  for  the  appointment 
and  it  was  now  four-twenty. 

Nevertheless,  hoping  that  the  Russian  might  have 
lingered  over  his  drink,  I  decided  to  carry  out  the  same 
arrangements  as  if  I  had  arrived  in  time.  These,  I 
remember  thinking  as  I  strolled  along  the  Rue  de 
Galata,  studiously  unconscious  of  gendarmes  and  sol- 
diers, were  suggestive  of  a  Deadwood  Dick  thriller,  or 
of  some  sawdust  melodrama  at  a  provincial  theatre. 

Having  entered  the  beerhouse  (named  Zum  Neuen 
Weli)y  I  was  to  pass  down  the  main  room  until,  on  the 
right-hand  side  of  it,  I  reached  the  piano.  I  must  seat 
myself  at  the  table  next  to  the  piano,  order  a  glass  of 
beer,  put  a  cigarette  behind  my  left  ear,  and  look  around 
without  showing  too  much  anxiety. 

Somewhere  near  me  I  should  find  a  man  whose  left 
ear,  also,  was  adorned  with  a  cigarette;  or,  if  not  al- 
ready there  he  would  arrive  very  shortly.     He  would 


196  EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

occupy  the  table  beyond  mine — that  is  to  say,  the  next 
but  one  to  the  piano.  On  no  account  must  I  speak  to 
him  in  the  beerhouse,  although  to  make  his  identity 
doubly  clear  he  might  ask  for  a  light,  speaking  in  Ger- 
man. He  would  remain  until  I  had  paid  my  reckoning, 
then  pay  his  own,  leave  the  Bierhaus  Zum  Neuen 
Welt,  and  walk  toward  Pera. 

I  was  to  follow  him  not  too  closely,  always  taking 
care  to  be  separated  by  a  distance  of  at  least  twenty 
yards,  so  that  nobody  might  observe  how  my  move- 
ments depended  on  his.  Arrived  on  the  fringe  of  Pera 
he  would  unlock  a  door,  leave  it  open,  and  disappear; 
whereupon  all  that  remained  for  me  was  to  follow  him 
into  this  retreat,  where  I  should  find  Captain  White 
already  installed. 

It  was  four-twenty-seven  when  I  entered  the  Bier- 
haus Zum  Neuen  Welty  a  close-atmosphered  cafe  in 
the  Rue  de  Galata.  The  customers  inside  it  were  few, 
but  some  of  them  caught  my  attention  at  once,  for  they 
included  a  group  of  German  soldiers  and  a  Turkish 
officer  of  gendarmerie,  who  was  talking  to  a  civilian. 
The  table  next  to  the  piano  was  vacant,  as  were  those 
surrounding  it.  I  sat  down,  casually  placed  a  cigarette 
behind  my  left  ear,  and  ordered  a  glass  of  beer. 

As  I  sipped  the  beer  I  looked  around  the  room  for  the 
man  of  mystery.  Nobody  paid  the  least  attention  to 
me.  Plenty  of  cigarettes  were  held  in  the  hand  or  the 
mouth,  but  none  in  the  cleft  of  the  left  ear. 

Still  with  a  faint  hope  that  the  Russian  who  was  to 
hide  me  might  return,  I  ordered  a  second  then  a  third 
glass  of  beer,  and  made  a  study  of  every  man  present,  in 
case  one  of  them  might  be  he.     But  nothing  had  hap- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  197 

pened,  and  nothing  continued  to  happen.  The  officer 
of  gendarmerie  kept  his  back  toward  me,  while  the 
German  soldiers  grew  boisterous  over  repeated  relays 
of  beer,  and  over  mandolin  strummings  by  a  red-faced 
Unteroffizier.  The  proprietress,  a  German  woman  of 
an  especial  corpulence,  dragged  her  fleshy  body  from 
table  to  table,  and  finally  arrived  before  mine. 

"You  seem  hot,"  she  said  in  German.  "You  must 
have  been  walking  too  fast." 

"No,  I  have  merely  been  out  in  this  atrocious  sun/' 

"German?"  she  asked — at  which  I  was  delighted,  for 
it  proved  that  my  accent,  acquired  many  years  before 
as  a  student  in  Munich,  was  not  yet  too  rusty  to  pass 
muster. 

"No,  madam,  Russian,"  I  replied,  hoping  hard  that 
she  could  speak  no  Russian. 

''Sol  Plenty  of  Russians  come  here  since  the 
Ukraine  was  occupied,  and  the  boats  began  to  arrive 
from  Odessa." 

Now  although  the  fat  proprietress  had  paid  such  a 
compliment  to  my  German  accent,  I  remembered  the 
five  years  since  I  had  spoken  the  language  continuously, 
and  I  was  frightened  that  in  any  word  she  might  detect 
an  English  accent.  I  grew  more  and  more  frightened 
and  anxious,  for  it  was  very  unlikely  that  the  man  with 
the  cigarette  would  arrive  now.  I  looked  at  my  watch, 
and  found  the  time  to  be  five-twenty-five. 

Finally  the  tension  of  trying  to  think  clearly  while 
answering  the  German  female's  questions  was  more 
than  I  could  stand.  I  paid  my  bill,  and  returned  to 
the  Rue  de  Galata. 

By  now,  I  judged,  the  guards  must  have  discovered 


198  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

my  escape.  Probably  they  were  searching  the  streets 
for  me;  and  probably  the  gendarmerie  in  Galata,  Pera, 
and  Stamboul  had  been  instructed  to  look  out  for  a 
European  in  a  gray  civilian  suit  and  a  black  hat.  I 
stopped  at  the  nearest  outfitting  shop,  bought  a  light- 
gray  hat,  and  left  the  black  one  lying  on  a  chair. 

Deciding  that  the  water  would  be  safer  than  the  land, 
I  made  my  way  back  to  the  bridge,  with  the  intention 
of  chartering  a  small  boat  for  a  trip  up  the  Bosphorus. 

Then,  crossing  the  open  space  facing  the  bridge,  I  was 

horrified  to  see  Mahmoud,  one  of  my  old  guards.     He 

'revolved  undecidedly  and  peered  among  the  crowd. 

Obviously  he  was  looking  for  someone;  and  the  odds  were 

a  hundred  to  one  that  the  someone  must  be  me. 

I  edged  away  from  him  without  being  observed,  and 
dodged  into  the  fruit  bazaar  among  the  quayside  streets 
to  right  of  the  bridge. 

This  bazaar  was  one  of  the  dirtiest  in  Constantinople. 
Millions  of  flies  drifted  over  and  settled  on  the  baskets 
of  tired  fruit.  The  very  stalls  seemed  ready  to  fall  to 
pieces  from  decrepitude.  The  people>  vendors  and 
buyers  alike,  were  dusty  and  ragged.  A  few  loiterers 
squatted  on  the  cobble  stones  and  sucked  orange-peel. 

It  was  inevitable  that  in  such  a  place  my  more  or  less 
smart  Legation  suit  and  my  newly  bought  hat  should 
attract  attention.  A  policeman,  of  the  "dog-collar'' 
species,  seemed  particularly  interested  in  them.  I  was 
leaving  the  bazaar  by  a  narrow  street  that  looked  as  if 
it  might  lead  me  to  the  subway  station  of  Galata  when 
he  barred  the  way  and  said  something  in  Turkish,  while 
holding  out  his  hand  expectantly. 

I  failed  to  understand  most  of  the  words,  but  one  of 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  199 

them — vecika — ^was  enough.  Vecikas  were  the  Turkish 
passports  with  which  every  honest,  or  rich  but  dishon- 
est, civiUan  had  to  provide  himself  if  he  wished  to  re- 
main at  liberty.  They  might  be  demanded  at  any  time 
in  any  place  by  any  gendarme. 

Naturally  I  could  produce  no  vecika.  But  I  had  the 
next  best  thing.  That  same  morning  I  had  discussed 
with  Vladimir  Wilkowsky  the  possibility  of  being  stop- 
ped in  the  street  by  a  policeman.  His  advice  was  that 
if  it  happened  I  must  claim  to  be  a  German  officer.  I 
remembered  being  photographed  in  civilian  clothes 
when  at  Gumuch  Souyou  Hospital;  and  before  leaving 
Psamatia  I  gave  myself  a  useful  identity  by  signing  one 
of  the  copies  with  a  German  name. 

After  searching  an  inside  pocket,  I  now  handed  to  the 
gendarme  a  photograph  which  went  to  prove  that  I 
was  "Fritz  Richter,  Oherleutnant  in  der  Fliegertrup" 
pen."  Speaking  [in  fluent  German,  interspersed  with 
a  few  words  of  broken  Turkish,  I  protested  violently 
that  I  was  a  German  officer  in  mufti,  and  that  he  would 
get  himself  into  trouble  for  having  presumed  to  stop  a 
German  officer.  And  never  was  I  more  frightened 
than  when  uttering  that  bombast. 

Half  convinced  and  half  browbeaten,  the  gendarme 
took  the  photograph,  looked  at  it  dubiously,  and  con- 
sulted a  Greek  from  among  the  curious  crowd  that  cir- 
cled us.  This  man,  it  appeared,  claimed  to  know  Ger- 
man. I  understood  little  of  the  conversation,  but  as 
far  as  I  could  gather  the  policeman  asked  if  I  really  were 
a  German  officer;  and  the  stallkeeper,  reading  the  signa- 
ture laboriously,  informed  him  that  it  proclaimed  me 
to  be  a  Supreme  Lieutenant  of  the  Flying  Soldiers. 


200         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

''  Pek  ee,  effendi"  said  the  gendarme  to  me.  He  re- 
turned the  photograph,  salaamed,  and  apologized.  He 
then  went  away.     So  did  I. 

I  returned  cautiously,  through  a  combination  of  side 
streets,  to  the  bridge-head,  and  I  was  much  reheved  to 
find  that  Mahmoud  had  disappeared.  From  the  quay 
I  chartered  a  rowing-boat,  ordering  the  Turkish  kaiku 
che  to  row  me  up  the  Bosphorus. 

"Are  you  ^\iss\2in,efendiin?^'  he  asked. 

"No,  German,"  I  replied,  surlily.  At  that  his  con- 
versational advances  ended. 

The  train  of  thought  started  by  the  word  Russian 
led  me  to  decide  that  I  had  better  spend  the  night 
aboard  the  Russian  tramp  steamer  on  which  White 
and  I  were  to  travel  as  stowaways.  Vladimir  Wilkow- 
sky,  in  fact,  had  told  me  to  make  for  it  if  I  failed  to  reach 
the  hiding-place  on  shore,  and  to  ask  for  M.  TitofF,  the 
chief  engineer.  Its  name,  I  knew,  was  the  Batoum, 
and  most  of  its  officers  were  in  the  conspiracy  to  help 
us,  in  return  for  substantial  consideration.  I  knew 
that  the  ship  was  moored  in  the  Bosphorus,  but  of  its 
appearance  or  exact  position  I  had  been  told  nothing. 

^'Russky  dampfschiff  Batoum y'  I  ordered  the  kaiktche, 
using  the  polyglot  mixture  which  he  was  most  likely  to 
understand.  But  his  voluble  jabbering  and  his  expres- 
sive shrug  showed  that  he,  also,  was  ignorant  of  where 
it  lay. 

**Bosphor!**  I  commanded,  pointing  higher  up  the 
Bosphorus  and  thinking  that  I  would  find  the  name 
Batoum  painted  on  one  of  the  five  or  six  ships  that  I 
could  see  in  the  distance,  moored  in  midstream. 

But  having  rowed  some  distance  up  the  Bosphorus 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         201 

and  already  passed  Dolma  Bagche  Palace,  I  found  no 
ship  labelled  Batoum,  Most  of  the  craft  seemed  to  use 
only  numbers  as  distinguishing  marks.  What  was 
worse,  most  of  them  flew  the  German  flag;  although 
two  of  the  masts  sported  a  yellow-and-blue  standard 
which  I  failed  to  recognize.  Certainly  none  flew  the 
Russian  eagle. 

Our  only  chance  of  finding  the  Batoum  was  to  ask 
directions.  We  visited  several  lighters  near  the  quay; 
but  the  kaiktche*s  questions  to  Turks  and  Greeks  were 
unproductive.  As  a  last  chance  I  told  him  to  row  close 
to  a  large  steamer,  on  the  deck  of  which  I  could  see  some 
German  sailors. 

"Please  tell  me  where  I  can  find  the  Russian  boat 
Batoum,'*  I  shouted  in  German,  standing  up  while  the 
kaiktche  kept  the  Httle  craft  steady  with  his  oars. 

"  Don't  know  the  Batoum/'  said  a  sailor.  "  Here  there 
are  no  Russian  ships  now.  They've  become  German  or 
Austrian." 

"And  those  two  over  there?"  I  asked,  pointing  to- 
ward the  vessels  with  the  green-and-black  ensign. 

"Ukrainian." 

"Thanks  very  much,"  I  called  as  we  sheered  off.  My 
mistake,  I  realized,  had  been  in  forgetting  for  the  mo- 
ment the  existence  of  that  newly-made-in-Germany 
republic  the  Ukraine.  Any  vessel  from  Odessa  not  flying 
the  German  or  the  Austrian  flag  would  now  be  Ukrain- 
ian; and  the  yellow-and-blue  standard  must  be  that  of 
the  Ukrainian  Republic.  One  of  the  pair  flying  this 
flag  proclaimed  itself  to  be  the  Nikolaieff.  It  followed 
that  the  other,  which  was  marked  only  by  a  number, 
must  be  the  Batoum. 


202         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Having  made  the  kaiktche  take  me  to  the  bottom  of 
its  gangway,  I  dimbed  to  the  deck.  At  the  top  of  the 
gangway  was  a  tall  man  made  noticeable  by  a  bristling 
moustache  and  a  well-pressed  uniform  of  white  drill. 
Obviously  he  was  a  ship's  officer,  and  as  such  he  must 
be  one  of  the  syndicate  whom  Captain  White  and  I 
were  bribing.     If  so,  he  would  know  of  Wilkowsky. 

*'  Russky  vapor  Batoum?"     I  asked  in  pidgin-Russian. 

''Da.'' 

''Monsieur  TitoffF'* — pointing  at  him  by  way  of  en- 
quiry into  his  identity. 

"Niet;  Monsieur  Belaef." 

"Droug  Vladimir  Ivanovitch  Wilkowsky?'' 

He  gave  me  a  long  look,  smiled,  and  said  under  his 
breath:  "Yes,  meester." 

These  were  the  only  English  words  known  by  Ivan 
Stepanovitch  Belaef,  first  mate  of  the  Ukrainian  tramp 
steamer  Batoum,  from  Odessa.  And  for  the  moment, 
at  any  rate,  I  was  safe  among  friends. 


At  about  armistice  time  I  was  hailed  unexpectedly 
in  Port  Said  by  C,  one  of  the  British  officers  whom  I  had 
left  behind  on  the  ferry  stage  of  the  Golden  Horn.  He 
himself  had  seen  me  leave  the  cafe,  cHmb  the  steps 
leading  to  the  bridge,  and  fade  into  the  crowd. 

A  few  moments  after  my  disappearance,  related  C., 
the  Turkish  officer  called  the  roll  of  the  prisoners,  be- 
fore taking  them  to  the  ferryboat.  That  roll-call  al- 
most led  to  the  premature  discovery  of  my  escape;  for 
when  the  Turk  said  **A-lan  Thom-as  l^otty"  four  people 
answered. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    FACE   AT  THE   WINDOW 

"Monsieur  Titoff,"  announced  the  first  mate,  entering 
his  cabin  with  a  hunched-up  figure  of  a  man,  whose 
most  obvious  characteristics  were  shifty  eyes,  very 
high  cheekbones  and  a  shrivelled,  yellow  skin. 

M.  TitofF  and  I  inspected  each  other  with  care  as  I 
rose  from  the  only  chair  and  shook  hands.  He,  I  knew, 
was  the  guiding  spirit  in  the  syndicate  of  mates  and 
engineers  whom  we  were  bribing. 

He  produced  a  book  of  English  phrases,  with  their 
Russian  equivalents.  Opening  it  at  a  prepared  page 
he  ran  his  finger  down  the  Hst  and  said  "Seegnal!" 

"Signal?" 

"Yess,  ceegarette  seegnal." 

Remembering  the  arrangements  for  the  beerhouse 
rendezvous,  I  placed  a  cigarette  behind  my  left  ear; 
whereat  the  chief  engineer  and  the  first  mate  smiled, 
and  shook  hands  once  again.  Neither  of  them  could 
speak  any  language  but  Russian,  so  that  we  talked  with 
difficulty,  exchanging  half-understood  patter  from  the 
phrase  book. 

After  some  strumming  on  the  mandolin  and  balalaika 
by  TitofF  and  Belaef,  I  slept  on  the  first  mate's  couch, 
with  my  money  tucked  next  to  my  skin. 

Next  morning  I  was  introduced  to  the  third  mate,  a 

203 


204         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

stocky  Lett  who  could  speak  German.  Using  him  as 
interpreter  TitofF  explained  his  arrangements.  I  was  to 
dress  myself  as  a  Russian  sailor,  leave  the  Batoum,  and 
be  led  to  the  hiding-place  in  Pera.  White  and  I  were 
to  remain  there  for  a  week,  until  the  day  before  the  ship 
sailed.  We  could  then  be  concealed  on  board  the  Batoum 
until  she  was  safely  out  of  the  Bosphorus. 

Wearing  some  old  clothes  belonging  to  Kulman,  the 
third  mate,  but  with  their  rank  badges  removed,  I 
rowed  ashore.  Kulman  accompanied  me,  while  TitofFj 
prominent  in  white  drill,  waited  on  the  quay.  Neither 
he  nor  the  white-bearded  old  man  to  whom  he  was  talk- 
ing took  the  least  notice  of  us,  but  turned  and  passed 
toward  the  Rue  de  Galata.  The  third  mate  and  I  fol- 
lowed, without,  however,  showing  apparent  concern 
in  their  movements. 

At  the  corner  of  a  side  street  on  the  far  side  of  the 
Rue  de  Galata  Titoff  parted  from  his  companion.  Kul- 
man followed  suit  by  leaving  me,  after  giving  low- 
voiced  instructions  that  I  must  follow  the  old  man. 

The  stranger  led  the  way  up  the  hill,  toward  Pera, 
while  I  kept  behind  him  at  a  convenient  distance,  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  road.  For  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
he  moved  through  a  succession  of  uneven  streets  and 
cobbled  alleys,  so  that  I  soon  lost  my  bearings. 

I  was  not  conscious  of  danger,  however.  In  the  faded 
old  uniform  of  a  sailor,  and  with  my  civilian  clothes 
wrapped  in  a  newspaper,  I  attracted  little  attention. 
Occasionally  I  looked  into  shop  windows  to  divert  the 
suspicions  of  any  who  might  otherwise  have  noticed 
that  I  was  following  the  ancient. 

Finally  the  guide  halted  among  the  wooden  houses 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         205 

on  the  outskirts  of  Pera,  produced  an  enormous  key, 
and  unlocked  an  iron  door.  I  slackened  my  steps  as  he 
disappeared  inside  the  door,  but  passed  through  it  a  few 
seconds  later. 

Inside  was  half-darkness.  Besides  the  old  man  I 
could  see,  dimly,  an  unkempt  and  unshaven  figure, 
wearing  an  overcoat  that  was  much  too  small  for  him.  I 
looked  at  this  apparition  with  puzzled  doubt.  Surely 
it  could  not  be  White,  whom  I  had  last  seen  running 
through  the  streets  of  Koum-kapou,  in  a  perfectly 
respectable  suit  of  Red  Cross  clothes .?  Yes,  it  must  be, 
for  it  came  toward  me  with  outstretched  hand. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  old  man,"  said  the  figure  in  the 
overcoat.     "I  don't  know  which  of  us  looks  the  more 


comic." 


**Why  the  dyed  moustache,  and  why  this?"  pointing 
to  a  faded  fez  which  protruded  from  one  of  his  pockets. 

White  reserved  his  tale  until  TitofF's  friend  had  left 
us,  after  promising  to  return  with  food  and  water. 

While  the  guard  was  chasing  him  in  Koum-kapou, 
White  related,  he  turned  the  corner  suddenly  and  saw 
an  open  doorway.  He  rushed  into  it,  acting  on  im- 
pulse. 

Just  inside  the  door  was  a  woman,  who  screamed. 
He  put  his  hand  over  her  mouth,  then  dodged  down  a 
narrow  passage  into  the  back  room,  while  the  pursuing 
guard  raced  past  the  house  and  up  the  street. 

Very  fortunately  for  White  the  woman  was  a  Greek, 
and  as  such  well  disposed  to  the  British.  She  hid  him 
in  a  cupboard  for  an  hour,  and  persuaded  her  husband, 
when  he  arrived  home  at  midday,  to  provide  a  disguise. 

White  bought  a  fez  and  an  overcoat,  and  blackened 


2o6         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

his  moustache.  The  Greek  was  shorter  and  slighter 
than  he,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  wear  the  overcoat 
without  removing  his  own  jacket  and  waistcoat.  These 
he  left  in  the  house.  The  results,  however,  justified 
his  loss,  for  when  he  went  into  the  streets,  during  the 
afternoon,  he  was  a  perfect  study  of  a  broken-down 
Levantine. 

He  reached  Galata  too  late  for  the  beerhouse  rendez- 
vous, and  was  obliged,  therefore,  to  spend  the  evening 
and  night  as  best  he  could.  As  he  wandered  along  the 
Rue  de  Galata  a  policeman  stopped  him  and,  according 
to  the  Near  East  habit,  showed  a  cigarette  without  say- 
ing a  word  and  signed  that  he  wanted  a  light.  This 
White  supplied  from  the  cigarette  he  was  smoking. 
The  gendarme  passed  on,  without  deigning  to  thank 
the  wretched  looking  man  in  a  faded  fez  and  torn  coat. 

A  cafe  and  two  cinemas  filled  his  evening.  After- 
v/ard,  unable  to  hire  a  room  at  any  hotel  or  lodging- 
house,  because  he  had  no  vecika,  he  spent  the  night 
huddled  behind  a  cemetery  tombstone. 

Next  day  he  met  TitoPs  Russian  friend  in  the  Ger- 
man beerhouse,  according  to  plan;  and  so  to  the  hiding- 
place. 

This  hiding-place  of  ours  was  a  disused  workshop 
belonging  to  the  Russian,  who  claimed  to  be  a  carpen- 
ter. Its  only  furniture  was  a  crude  bench  and  a  long 
table.  The  floor  lay  inches  deep  in  shavings  through 
which  the  rats  rustled  all  night  and  most  of  the  day. 
There  was  one  small  window;  but  this  we  were  told 
to  keep  covered  by  its  iron  shutter,  in  case  somebody 
should  look  in  from  the  street.  A  tiny  yard  led  from 
the  corner  opposite  the  door  to  the  bottom  of  a  shaft. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  207 

down  which  the  dwellers  on  the  upper  floors  of  the  build- 
ing threw  their  rubbish. 

In  themselves  these  conditions  were  fairly  bad;  for 
apart  from  the  lack  of  furniture,  the  atmosphere  was 
always  dusty  and  unpleasantly  musty,  and  unless  we 
opened  the  window  the  workshop  remained  in  per- 
petual twilight.  But  the  worst  drawback  of  all  was 
that  only  a  flimsy  partition  separated  us  from  the  liv- 
ing room  of  a  Turkish  officer.  His  bedroom  was  above 
our  wooden  ceiling.  Everything  he  did  we  could  hear 
quite  plainly,  whether  he  coughed,  spoke,  whistled,  re- 
moved his  boots,  or  snored. 

The  Turkish  officer,  we  realized,  must  likewise  hear 
every  movement  of  ours;  so  that  whenever  either  he  or 
his  orderly  or  anybody  else  was  in  his  rooms  we  main- 
tained, perforce,  a  death-like  stillness.  We  scarcely 
dared  to  whisper,  or  to  tip-toe  across  the  workshop  on 
bootless  feet.  In  the  daytime,  the  striking  of  a  match 
had  to  be  masked  by  scraping  the  shavings,  so  as  to 
make  a  noise  like  a  rat.  After  daylight  smoking  was 
impossible,  because  the  glimmer  would  have  shown 
through  the  many  cracks  in  the  partition. 

We  slept  side  by  side  on  the  wooden  table,  with  rolled- 
up  coats  as  pillows.  White  once  woke  up  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  and  was  horrified  to  hear  me  talking  in  my 
sleep.  Fortunately,  the  Turk  above  was  not  awake, 
and  so  missed  the  performance.  Afterward  we  never 
slept  at  the  same  time,  but  kept  watch  in  turn,  in  case 
one  of  us  should  snore  or  otherwise  attract  attention. 
Four  of  the  nights  were  broken  into  by  machine-gun 
fire  from  a  near-by  roof,  during  British  air-raids. 

On  my  arrival  White  had  told  me  that  we  must  be 


2o8  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

particularly  careful  in  the  mornings,  just  after  the  Turk- 
ish officer  left  the  house.  The  noises  from  the  living 
room  then  suggested  that  somebody,  probably  the 
Turk's  wife,  was  tidying  it.  This  happened  on  three 
successive  mornings.  What  worried  us  in  particular 
was  a  scrunching  and  scraping  behind  the  partition, 
which  suggested  that  the  wife  suspected  our  presence 
and  tried  to  look  at  us  through  the  cracks. 

Each  time  this  occurred  we  crouched  at  the  bottom 
of  the  partition,  fingered  our  lips  warningly,  and 
scarcely  dared  to  breathe.  On  the  fourth  day,  when 
the  Russian  brought  our  food,  we  told  him  our  suspi- 
cions. 

"We  believe  this  Turkish  officer's  wife  knows  of  us," 
said  White.  "Every  morning  she  comes  to  the  parti- 
tion and  seems  to  be  looking  through  it." 

The  carpenter  grinned. 

"But,"  he  explained,  "the  Turk  has  no  wife.  What 
youVe  been  frightened  of  is  his  tame  rabbit!" 

Each  day  we  hoped  for  news  of  the  Batourns  date  of 
sailing.  Three  times  it  was  postponed;  and,  bored  and 
wretched,  we  remained  perforce  in  the  miserable  work- 
shop. 

Unable  to  keep  our  minds  as  inactive  as  our  bodies, 
we  took  the  risk  of  leaving  the  window  half  open  during 
the  daytime,  so  that  we  might  study  our  Russian  text- 
books, in  readiness  for  Odessa.  Seated  on  the  shavings 
in  a  position  to  catch  the  shaft  of  light  that  streamed 
through  ,  the  narrow  panes,  we  passed  many  hours  with 
the  copying  and  learning  of  Russian  phrases. 

When,  after  hours  of  study,  our  concentrative  facul- 
ties became  stale,  the  only  alternative  was  to  hope  for 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         209 

success,  and  to  live  again  in  retrospect  the  extravagant 
happenings  of  the  past  few  weeks.  Most  of  the  busi- 
ness usually  associated  with  the  crudest  melodrama  had 
been  there,  I  reflected — spies,  policemen,  disguises, 
chases,  female  accomplices,  and  bluff.  Decidedly  it  had 
been  thrilling;  but  for  the  future  I  desired  intensely 
to  experience  such  thrills  only  at  second  hand. 

But  even  in  this  secluded  room  we  were  not  to  be 
spared  the  atmosphere  of  movie-horrifies.  Another 
stock  thrill  was  inflicted  on  us — The  Face  at  the  Win- 
dow. 

There  had  seemed  no  likelihood  of  discovery  from  the 
street.  Even  if  we  bared  the  window  from  its  iron 
shutter,  nobody  could  see  into  the  room  without  raising 
himself  on  the  ledge,  for  the  lower  panes  were  coated 
with  an  opaque  glaze.  At  mealtimes,  therefore,  we  let 
in  the  daylight  by  withdrawing  the  shutter. 

One  morning,  after  breakfast,  when  the  Turkish  offi- 
cer had  left  his  rooms,  I  saw  White  stiff'en  suddenly  as 
we  cleared  the  table. 

"Look  natural,"  he  whispered.  "There's  no  time  to 
duck." 

I  picked  up  a  plank  of  wood  and  tried  to  appear  as 
if  my  business  were  carpentry;  for  over  there,  four 
yards  away,  a  fez  was  rising  slowly  above  the  glazed 
portion  of  the  window.  White  performed  convincingly 
with  a  tape-measure,  the  nearest  thing  to  his  hand. 

The  fez  was  the  forerunner  of  a  much-wrinkled  fore- 
head. Then  came  a  pair  of  villainous  eyes,  a  bent  nose, 
and  cheek-bones  with  light  olive  skin  drawn  tightly 
across  them.  The  rest  of  the  face  remained  hidden  by 
the  glaze.     The  Turk — for  such  he  evidently  was—' 


2IO         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

must  have  levered  himself  from  the  ground  by  means  of 
the  window-ledge. 

"Don't  take  any  notice  of  the  swine,"  White  mur- 
mured. 

Outwardly  calm,  but  inwardly  nervous  and  shaking, 
I  pretended  to  busy  myself  with  the  carpenter's  tools, 
although  it  was  difficult  to  withstand  a  shocked  in- 
stinct to  gaze  at  the  Face.  It  remained  for  about  two 
minutes  of  heart-throbbing  tension,  then  disappeared, 
and  left  me  gasping  with  the  surprise  and  the  shock  of 
its  visit.  We  heard  somebody  walking  away  from  the 
building  and  down  the  hill  toward  Galata. 

The  Face  might  have  belonged  to  a  police  spy,  we 
speculated,  but  it  might  have  been  that  of  a  casual 
passer-by  who  was  indulging  the  curiosity  in  respect  of 
other  people's  business  which  is  common  to  most  Turks. 
In  that  case  no  harm  would  be  done,  for  the  stranger 
had  seen  nothing  suspicious — only  a  workshop,  some 
tools  and  planks,  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  half  melon  on  the 
table,  and  two  coatless,  collarless,  unshaven,  untidy- 
haired  men  who  seemed  to  be  working. 

The  carpenter  showed  fright  on  being  told  that  a 
Turk  had  looked  in  at  us,  and  said  he  must  consult 
TitofF.  Before  he  returned  on  the  following  morning 
the  Face  had  again  appeared,  as  before — first  a  fez  ris- 
ing slowly  above  the  glazed  pane,  then  a  wrinkled  fore- 
head, then  the  villainous  eyes  and  the  crooked  nose.  It 
remained  staring  for  a  few  seconds,  and  disappeared. 

This  time  the  Russian  could  contain  neither  his  fear 
nor  his  impatience  to  get  us  out  of  the  workshop.  If 
we  were  caught,  said  he,  it  would  only  mean  imprison- 
ment for  us;  but  him  the  Turks  might  hang  as  a  spy. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  211 

He  told  us  to  pack  our  belongings,  while  he  went  to  the 
Batoum  and  arranged  with  TitofF  for  us  to  be  taken  on 
board. 

An  hour  later  a  procession  of  three  passed  through 
the  winding  streets  toward  the  quay.  We  left  the 
workshop  in  turn,  at  intervals  of  a  few  seconds,  for  we 
had  decided  to  walk  separately,  so  that  if  one  of  us  were 
stopped  the  others  could  make  themselves  scarce. 

First  went  the  carpenter,  leading  the  way  down  the 
hill  to  Galata.  I  followed  twenty  yards  behind  him, 
still  dressed  as  a  Russian  sailor;  and  about  twenty 
yards  behind  me  came  White,  in  his  fez  and  old  over- 
coat. We  scarcely  looked  at  each  other,  but  mooched 
along  different  sections  of  the  road.  Each  was  ready, 
at  a  second's  warning,  to  dash  down  the  nearest  alley. 

Until  the  Rue  de  Galata  was  reached  the  only  people 
we  saw  were  the  dull-eyed  and  ragged  inhabitants  of  the 
slum  quarter  that  fringes  Pera,  sitting  in  their  doorways 
and  blinking  in  the  heat  of  early  afternoon.  But  when 
we  crossed  the  Rue  de  Galata  White  almost  rubbed 
shoulders  with  a  couple  of  gendarmes. 

TitofF  was  waiting  on  the  quayside.  White  and  I 
approached  him,  whereupon  the  Russian  carpenter 
retraced  his  steps  and  left  us.  In  my  character  of  a 
Russian  seaman  I  saluted  the  Batoum  s  chief  engineer. 
He  hustled  us  into  a  waiting  kaik,  and  ordered  the  kaik- 
tche  to  row  to  the  Batoum, 

Kulman  was  waiting  at  the  top  of  the  gangway.  He 
led  us  to  his  cabin,  where,  he  said,  we  were  to  live  for 
the  present. 

Meanwhile,  the  ship  was  still  empty  of  cargo,  and  no 
definite  date  of  sailing  had  yet  been  given.     This  un- 


212  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

certain  delay  was  especially  unfortunate  because,  apart 
from  the  growing  risk  of  discovery,  our  money  was 
diminishing  at  an  alarming  rate. 

The  door  was  perforce  closed  all  day  long,  to  prevent 
discovery  by  the  captain.  In  the  heat  of  those  August 
days  on  the  Bosphorus  the  stifling  stuffiness  of  the  un- 
ventilated  little  cabin  became  almost  unbearable. 

Yet  we  had  one  consolation.  The  port-hole  could  be 
left  open  without  fear  of  intrusion  by  the  Face,  with  its 
wrinkled  forehead  surmounted  by  a  fez,  its  villainous 
eyes,  its  crooked  nose,  and  its  olive  skin  drawn  tightly 
across  the  cheek-bones.     .     .     . 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A   SHIPLOAD   OF   ROGUES 

Michael  Ivanovitch  Titoff,  one-time  chief  engineer 
of  the  tramp  steamer  Batoum,  proved  to  the  dissatisfac- 
tion of  Captain  White  and  myself  that  he  was  a  thief, 
a  mean  blackguard,  a  cunning  liar,  a  cringing  coward, 
a  rat,  and  an  altogether  despicable  cheat.  Otherwise  he 
was  not  a  bad  sort  of  fellow. 

-  At  the  time  when  we  lived  on  board  the  Batoum  as 
stowaways  her  officers  and  crew  were  rogues  almost  to 
a  man.  Except  Titoff  and  one  or  two  of  the  crew  they 
were  likeable  rogues,  however,  and  applied  an  in- 
stinctive sense  of  decency  to  their  unlawful  dealings. 
For  example,  Andreas  Kulman,  the  Lettish  third  mate, 
would  cheerfully  cheat  the  Turkish  merchant  who  had 
chartered  the  vessel,  and  cheerfully  smuggle  drugs 
from  anywhere  to  anywhere;  but  I  never  knew  him 
cheat  a  friend  or  a  poor  man,  or  take  advantage  of  a 
stranger  in  difficulties.  To  us,  as  prisoners  escaping 
from  Turkey,  he  showed  many  kindnesses;  and  if  we 
had  been  without  money  he  would  have  been  willing  to 
take  us  across  the  Black  Sea  without  payment.  The 
other  mates  were  of  the  same  type,  if  a  trifle  less  oblig- 
ing. 

The  second  and  third  engineers — Feodor  Mozny  and 
Josef  Koratkov — ^were  among  the  few  of  our  shipmates 

213 


214         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

who  could  not  be  classified  as  rogues.  They  trans- 
gressed only  to  the  innocuous  extent  of  smuggling 
moneyed  stowaways  and  contraband  goods.  They,  also, 
showed  White  and  myself  many  kindnesses;  as  did  the 
second  engineer's  wife,  who  voyaged  with  her  husband. 
Several  evenings  she  spent  in  the  heat  of  the  frowsy 
little  engine  room,  washing  our  only  underclothes, 
while  we  sat  in  Josefs  cabin,  clad  in  nothing  but  the 
tunic  and  trousers  of  our  Russian-sailor  disguises. 

We  wore  these  disguises  for  the  benefit  of  visitors  to 
the  Batouniy  and  not  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the 
crew.  That  was  needless,  for,  except  the  captain,  every 
man  belonging  to  the  ship  soon  knew  of  us.  The  mar- 
vel was  that  with  so  many  people  privy  to  the  secret  it 
never  leaked  to  the  Turkish  police.  In  pro-Entente 
circles  ashore  our  presence  on  the  Batoum  was  widely 
known  and  widely  discussed;  and  I  count  it  a  debt  to 
Providence  that  the  news  was  not  carried  to  the  Minis- 
try of  War  by  one  of  the  city's  many  police  spies.  The 
crew  were  unlikely  to  betray  us  knowingly,  for  every 
man  of  them  must  have  been  concerned  in  something 
which  might  wither  in  the  strong  light  of  a  police  in- 
vestigation. Besides,  they  were  tolerant  of  the  Brit- 
ish, while  disliking  the  Turks  even  more  than  they  dis- 
Hked  the  Germans. 

The  captain — a  white-bearded,  bent-backed  Greek 
of  about  eighty — seemed  incompetent,  and  well  on  the 
way  to  senile  decay,  but  withal  harmless.  This  voyage 
was  to  be  his  last  before  enforced  retirement.  He  was 
as  wax  in  the  cunning  hands  of  TitofF,  who  kept  from 
him  the  knowledge  that  two  escaped  Britishers  were 
aboard.     Had    he   known   he  would   have   either   in- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         215 

sisted  on  our  removal,  or — more  probably — -demanded 
a  large  share  of  the  passage  money.  It  was  easy  to  keep 
the  ancient  in  ignorance,  for  apparently  he  knew  less 
than  anybody  else  of  what  happened  on  his  vessel. 
Titoff  assured  us  that  should  the  captain  see  us  in  our 
disguise  of  Russian  sailors  he  would  remain  unsuspi- 
cious if  we  took  care  not  to  speak.  His  dechning  mind 
had  become  too  feeble  to  remember  ofF-hand  even  the 
number  of  the  crew;  and  much  less  could  he  remember 
their  faces.  Once  I  brushed  by  him  closely,  outside 
Kulman's  cabin.  He  passed  without  a  glance  at  me, 
looking  on  the  ground  and  muttering  into  his  beard. 

The  crew  was  a  dubious  mixture.  Many — in  par- 
ticular the  firemen — had  been  Bolsheviki  until  Aus- 
tro-German  forces  landed  at  Odessa  and  Sevastopol 
and  temporarily  crushed  Bolshevism  in  South  Russia. 
Other  ex-members  of  the  bourgeoisie,  but  unable  to  make 
a  living  on  land  under  present  conditions,  had  become 
temporary  seamen  by  the  grace  of  friends  connected 
with  the  shipping  company  that  owned  the  Batoum. 
There  was  also  a  bright  youth  named  Viktor,  who,  until 
the  Bolshevist  revolution,  was  a  student.  His  father,  a 
lawyer,  had  been  killed  in  the  rioting  at  KiefF  that  ac- 
companied the  Soviet  rise  to  power;  and  the  son,  to  keep 
himself  alive,  now  swabbed  the  decks  of  a  tramp  steamer 
and  submitted  to  being  kicked  by  sailors  and  corrupted 
by  Michael  Ivanovitch  TitofF.  Viktor  spoke  French 
and  German,  and  was  therefore  muchjn  request  as  in- 
terpreter when  the  ship's  officers  bargained  with  their 
stowaways  or  invested  in  contraband  consignments,  or 
when  one  of  them  brought  on  board  some  cosmopolitan 
wench  from  Pera  or  Galata. 


2i6         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Our  most  interesting  shipmate  on  the  Batoum  was 
perhaps  Bolshevik  Bill  the  Greaser.  One  afternoon 
when  White,  dressed  in  sailor's  clothes,  was  helping  to 
paint  the  ship's  side,  a  hard-faced  giant  in  overalls  ap- 
proached him,  produced  a  Russian-French  grammar, 
and  asked  for  a  lesson.  So  far  as  his  slight  knowledge 
of  French  and  slighter  knowledge  of  Russian  allowed, 
White  did  his  best  to  comply.  Thereafter  the  greaser 
became  a  close  friend,  following  us  round  the  deck  in 
the  evening,  visiting  us  at  odd  hours  during  the  day- 
time, and  bringing  us  figs. 

Like  most  of  the  greasers  and  firemen  he  was  a  Bol- 
shevik. He  was  not  a  bloodthirsty  Bolshevik,  how- 
ever, but  one  who,  according  to  his  own  limited  and 
crude  conceptions  of  universal  equality,  wanted  plenty 
of  wealth,  plenty  of  happiness,  plenty  of  vodka  for  all. 
He  was  especially  eloquent  and  brotherly  when  drunk. 

Others  of  the  Bolsheviki  were  idealists  of  a  more 
exterminative  type.  Once,  when  White  was  playing 
cards  with  some  firemen  in  the  engine  room,  the  talk 
swung  to  the  Russian  Revolution.  A  lean  man,  who 
until  then  had  been  too  busy  drinking  to  speak,  began 
to  describe  the  mutiny  in  the  Baltic  Fleet,  of  which  he 
had  been  a  sailor.  In  his  intensity  he  seemed  to  live 
again  through  the  horrors  of  it,  as  with  gloating  gesture 
he  described  how  unpopular  officers  had  been  thrown 
into  the  sea  with  weights  tied  to  their  feet. 

*'That  was  bad,  very  bad,"  protested  White  in  his 
halting  Russian.  "If  you  are  in  power  and  somebody 
has  done  wrong,  he  should  be  given  a  fair  trial  and,  if 
convicted,  put  in  prison.  But  to  kill  men  merely  be- 
cause you  dislike  them  isVery  wrong." 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  217 

"Well  said!"  commented  Bolshevik  Bill  the  Greaser. 

"No;  well  meant  if  you  like,"  amended  the  lean  fire- 
man, as  he  patted  White  on  the  back;  **but  the  Meester 
does  not  understand  us.  We  would  never  do  such  a 
thing  to  English  officers.  We  had  them  as  instructors 
and  found  them  true  friends  of  their  men.  Our  officers 
were  very  different.  They  hit  us  and  ignored  us  and 
treated  us  like  animals.  We  shall  never  be  perma- 
nently free  until  they  are  all  dead.  We  must  destroy 
their  class.     Russia " 

His  voice  had  been  growing  louder  and  more  rau- 
cous. Suddenly  it  softened  as  he  turned  to  White  and 
said :  **  Meester,  you  know  your  business  and  we  know 
ours.     Have  a  fig."     And  the  game  of  cards  continued. 

Yet,  among  the  whole  shipload  of  rogues,  the  only 
man  who  victimized  us  was  Titoff,  the  chief  engineer. 
When  we  first  came  aboard  he  demanded  twelve  dollars 
a  day  for  food  which,  being  stolen  from  the  ship's  sup- 
plies, cost  him  nothing.  At  the  instigation  of  the 
second  and  third  engineers  we  reduced  the  payment  to 
six  dollars  a  day.  He  blustered,  but  gave  way  and 
tried  to  make  up  the  difference  by  cheating  us  over 
tobacco,  cigarettes,  newspapers,  and  other  articles 
bought  on  shore.  He  paid  twenty-five  dollars  for  a 
revolver,  and  tried  to  sell  it  to  us  for  thirty-five,  as  being 
the  cost  price. 

We  had  left  at  Psamatia  a  store  of  clothes  and  tinned 
food,  which  was  to  have  been  smuggled  on  board  by  the 
Russian  aviator  Vladimir  Wilkowsky.  As  the  days 
passed  and  nothing  arrived  we  suspected  Wilkowsky  of 
having  either  failed  or  fooled  us.  Then,  at  a  party  in 
Titoff's  cabin  one  evening,  I  saw  inside  a  cupboard  some 


2i8  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

tins  of  biscuits  and  cocoa,  of  the  kinds  that  were  sent  to 
aviator  prisoners  in  Turkey  by  the  British  Flying  Ser- 
vices Fund.  TitofF  could  not — and  in  any  case  cer- 
tainly would  not — have  bought  them  in  Constantinople; 
for  EngUsh  cocoa  and  biscuits,  if  obtainable  at  all  in  the 
shops  of  Pera,  fetched  extortionate  prices. 

Although  the  mere  sight  of  the  tins  provided  insuf- 
ficient proof,  the  inference  was  that  Wilkowsky  had 
sent  our  belongings  and  that  TitofF  had  stolen  them. 
But  we  delayed  investigation  and  accusation  until  we 
should  be  safely  out  of  Turkey,  and  in  the  possession 
of  revolvers.  Some  time  or  other  we  meant  to  make 
TitofF  sufFer.  Meanwhile,  we  were  forced  to  wait  until 
our  moment  came. 

Delay  followed  upon  heart-breaking  delay,  until  we 
began  to  lose  hope  that  the  Batoum  would  ever  weigh 
anchor.  In  four  days'  time,  it  was  promised,  the  cargo 
would  arrive.  Two  days  later  the  four  days  had 
stretched,  elastic-wise,  to  ten,  because  a  consignment  of 
figs  had  not  arrived  from  Smyrna.  Then,  a  week  after- 
ward, a  further  extension  of  five  days  was  reported, 
the  Turkish  merchant  having  failed  to  come  to  terms 
with  the  Ministry  of  Commerce. 

It  became  impossible  for  us  to  remain  in  Kulman's 
cabin,  which  faced  the  captain's.  The  old  skipper  re- 
ceived many  visitors,  including  Turkish  officials,  any 
one  of  whom  might  have  been  led  by  mischance  to  dis- 
cover us.  At  TitofF's  suggestion  we  moved  to  a  small 
room  on  the  bridge,  formerly  occupied  by  a  wireless 
operator,  in  the  days  when  the  Batoum  was  a  Russian 
transport.  The  transmitter  and  receiver  were  still 
there,  but  had  been  out  of  action  long  since,  for  the  Ger- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         219 

mans  forbade  the  use  of  wireless  by  merchant  craft  in 
the  Black  Sea. 

There  we  remained  hidden  for  a  succession  of  twelve 
monotonous  days  and  nights  enlivened  only  by  British 
air-raids  and  by  expeditions  to  the  deck  when  sunset 
and  twilight  were  past,  and  we  could  take  exercise  by 
tramping  backward  and  forward,  forward  and  back- 
ward, in  the  shadow.  For  the  rest,  we  continued  to 
study  Russian,  and  received  friendly  calls  from  Kul- 
man,  Josef,  Feodor,  Viktor  the  Student,  and  Bolshevik 
Bill  the  Greaser. 

TitofF  visited  us  once  only,  when  he  searched  for  the 
platinum  points  on  the  Marconi  transmitter.  But  al- 
ready every  morsel  of  platinum  had  been  removed ;  and 
the  chief  engineer  seemed  disgusted  that  somebody  else 
should  have  anticipated  his  latest  idea  for  profitable 
villainy. 

The  tedium  of  inactive  waiting,  of  day-to-day  hopes 
and  disappointments,  was  as  unpleasant  and  irritating 
as  a  blanket  of  damp  horsehair.  Our  only  diversion 
was  the  kaleidoscopic  view  from  the  window,  while  the 
ship  swung  with  the  tides.  Not  fifty  yards  away  the 
Sultan's  summer  palace  stood  in  whitestone  promi- 
nence amid  the  dull,  squat  buildings  of  Galata.  Look- 
ing across  the  Bosphorus,  with  its  heavy  dhows,  its 
ferryboats,  its  dancing  kaiks,  and  its  sun-glittering 
wavelets,  we  could  see  Seraglio  Point,  and,  in  the  dis- 
tance, the  domed  roofs  and  minaret  spires  of  St.  Sophia 
and  the  other  great  mosques  of  Stamboul. 

Meals  were  served  irregularly,  for  journeys  from  the 
kitchen  to  the  wireless  cabin  were  dependent  upon  the 
outgoings  and  incomings  of  the  captain  and  his  visitors. 


220         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND .  FLIGHTS 

Whenever  he  or  they  came  on  the  bridge  we  made  fast 
the  door,  and  crouched  beneath  the  window. 

Our  supply  of  money  continued  to  dwindle,  until  it 
was  insufficient  to  pay  the  four  hundred  Turkish  pounds 
which  TitofF  demanded  as  passage  money.  We  hesi- 
tated to  approach  Mr.  S.  once  more,  not  wishing  to 
involve  him  in  our  danger.  Yet  we  had  no  other  method 
of  obtaining  funds.  Driven  to  the  distasteful  course 
by  urgent  necessity  we  decided  to  compromise  by  com- 
municating with  him  through  intermediaries,  instead 
of  visiting  his  office  ourselves. 

Titoff  was  anxious  to  be  employed  as  messenger,  but 
we  shrank  from  placing  him  in  a  position  which  he 
might  misuse  to  blackmail  Mr.  S.  We  therefore  re- 
sumed communication  with  Theodore,  the  Greek  wait- 
er, by  sending  him  an  envelope  that  contained  instruc- 
tions for  himself,  and  a  sealed  letter  for  Mr.  S.  When 
TitofF  went  ashore  to  deliver  the  envelope  to  Theodore, 
Kulman  accompanied  him,  as  a  check  on  his  propensity 
to  walk  crookedly. 

The  pair  returned  with  the  welcome  news  that  Mr. 
S.  would  cash  our  cheques  in  three  days'  time.  Mean- 
while, the  stowaway  syndicate  had  been  offered  new 
business.  Fulton  and  Stone  had  appeared  once  again 
upon  the  escape-horizon,  and  were  living  in  Theodore's 
house.  Yeats-Brown,  in  his  disguise,  was  paying  them 
frequent  visits.  Theodore  had  approached  TitofF  with 
a  proposition  that  on  the  night  before  the  Batoum 
sailed  the  three  of  them  should  join  us.  The  chief 
engineer  and  his  partners  rather  shied  at  the  increased 
risk,  but  the  money  offered  was  too  much  for  them,  and 
they  agreed  to  take  Yeats-Brown,  Fulton,  and  Stone. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         221 

And  then,  with  the  prospect  before  us  of  sufficient 
funds  and  three  useful  companions,  we  suffered  yet 
another  disappointment.  At  the  time  appointed  for  a 
rendezvous  Titoff"  went  to  fetch  the  money  which  Mr.  S. 
was  to  send  by  Theodore.  He  returned  with  an  anxious 
face  and  the  announcement  that  the  Greek  waiter  had 
disappeared.  He  waited  vainly  for  more  than  an  hour 
in  the  Maritza  restaurant,  where  the  other  waiters  pro- 
fessed to  know  nothing  of  Theodore's  whereabouts. 

It  now  seemed  that  not  only  should  we  be  unable  to 
pay  for  our  passage,  but  that  we  had  lost  the  money 
paid  by  Mr.  S.  (so  we  surmised)  in  exchange  for  our 
cheques.  Somewhere,  we  felt  sure,  there  was  roguery. 
Three  likely  and  unpleasant  possibilities  loomed  before 
us.  Theodore  might  have  stolen  the  money  and  then 
vanished;  TitofF  might  have  stolen  it;  they  might  have 
stolen  it  jointly.  Our  one  legitimate  hope  was  that 
Mr.  S.  might  not  have  cashed  the  cheques  before  Theo- 
dore's  disappearance. 

Our  only  chance  of  discovering  the  truth  was  per- 
sonal investigation.  On  the  following  afternoon  White, 
again  wearing  his  fez  and  old  overcoat  and  with  his 
moustache  darkened,  rowed  ashore.  He  took  the  tram 
to  the  foot  of  the  Golden  Horn  bridge,  walked  across  to 
Stamboul,  and  entered  the  Maritza. 

The  low-roofed  restaurant's  appearance  was  as  us- 
ual; but  somehow  the  atmosphere  seemed  electric  with 
suspicion.  A  Turkish  officer  of  gendarmerie  sat  at  a 
table  near  the  door.  Theodore  was  conspicuously  ab- 
sent. 

White  ordered  a  glass  of  beer,  and  while  doing  so 
asked  for  news  of  him.    The  waiter  looked  frightened, 


222         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

and  left  the  table  without  a  reply.     When  he  returned 
White  repeated  the  question.     He  was  then  told : 

'*He  has  fallen  with  the  three  British  officers.  I  pray 
you  not  to  talk  of  it." 

"But  I  must  know,"  urged  White,  speaking  in  low- 
toned,  halting  French.  **I  am  a  British  officer  my- 
self"— for  this  waiter,  also,  had  acted  as  an  intermediary 
for  prisoners.  He  now  looked  more  frightened  than 
ever,  and  took  care  to  keep  away  from  the  neighbour- 
hood of  White's  table. 

Glancing  round.  White  saw  a  Turk  washing  his  hands 
in  the  little  basin  at  the  back  of  the  room,  while  looking, 
slantwise  but  intently,  at  each  man  present  in  turn, 
but  more  particularly  at  the  proprietor  and  the  waiters. 

After  White's  return  to  the  Batoum  with  the  bad 
news  we  all  but  gave  up  hope  of  recovering  the  four 
hundred  Turkish  pounds,  for  the  poHce  would  most 
certainly  have  taken  whatever  moneys  were  found  on 
Theodore.  We  had,  also,  to  reckon  with  the  new  dan- 
ger that  bastinado  floggings  might  persuade  the  Greek 
into  betraying  us. 

Next  morning's  issue  of  the  Lloyd  Ottoman  brought 
detailed  confirmations.  Three  British  officers,  said 
a  Faits  Divers  paragraph,  had  been  concealed  in  the 
house  of  one  Theodore  Yanni,  a  Greek  waiter  employed 
at  a  restaurant  in  Stamboul.  The  police  surrounded 
the  building  and  discovered  them.  They  were  taken  to 
the  Ministry  of  War  Prison  with  Theodore,  his  two 
sisters,  and  his  aged  mother. 

The  Ministry  of  War  Prison — "The  Black  Hole  of 
Constantinople"!  We  could  see  the  Ministry  of  War 
in  the  distance  from  the  bridge  of  the  Batouniy  and 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         223 

knowing  the  horrors  of  its  special  punishment  cells,  we 
shuddered  with  sympathy  for  the  strangely  mixed 
party.  Theodore  himself,  we  supposed,  would  be  hanged 
out  of  hand. 

Our  almost  hopeless  position  forced  us  into  the  reck- 
less decision  to  discover  the  truth  by  paying  a  personal 
visit  to  Mr.  S.  His  office  was  in  the  Prisoners  of  War 
department  of  the  Dutch  Legation,  where  he  helped  to 
administer  the  British  Red  Cross  funds. 

The  building  was  on  the  way  to  the  Petits  Champs 
Gardens,  near  the  Pera  Palace  Hotel;  and  there  I  went, 
in  my  sailor's  uniform,  with  Kulman  as  companion.  At 
the  door  was  a  multi-lingual  porter,  whom  I  had  seen 
when,  before  my  escape,  I  once  bribed  a  guard  into 
letting  me  visit  the  Prisoners'  Bureau.  I  hung  back, 
and  allowed  Kulman  to  take  the  lead;  for  I  feared  that, 
despite  the  Russian  uniform,  the  porter  might  recognize 
me  by  certain  scars  on  my  face,  the  legacy  of  an  aero- 
plane crash.  Fortunately  he  could  talk  Russian.  In 
answer  to  Kulman  he  said  that  Mr.  S.  was  out  for  the 
rest  of  the  day.  We  left,  therefore,  and  passed  the  af- 
ternoon in  various  cafes,  where  Kulman  introduced  me 
to  friends  as  a  German-speaking  Lett. 

Next  afternoon,  before  starting  for  Pera,  I  was  care- 
ful to  make  the  tell-tale  scars  less  evident  by  means  of 
chalk  and  powder.  This  time  we  found  that  Mr.  S. 
was  in  the  Dutch  Legation  annexe,  although  engaged 
and  busy.  We  walked  up  the  stairway  to  the  first 
floor  and  stood  in  the  corridor  outside  Mr.  S.'s  office. 

Only  then  did  I  realize  the  foolhardiness  of  the  visit. 
Very  much  in  evidence  were  two  officials  whom  I  had 
met  as  a  prisoner;  and  I  was  forced  to  shrink  behind 


224         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Kulman  when  there  passed  a  Jewish  kavass  who  knew 
me  well,  from  having  brought  clothes  and  money  when 
I  was  a  hospital  patient.  Fortunately  he  went  by  with 
only  a  casual  glance  at  the  two  men  in  sailors'  uniform. 

We  waited  twenty  minutes,  and  still  the  man  with 
whom  Mr.  S.  was  closeted  remained  in  the  office.  Twice, 
speaking  in  French,  I  made  application  to  the  lady- 
secretary  of  Mr.  S.;  but  already,  before  we  arrived,  three 
people  had  been  waiting  to  see  him,  and  I  was  told  that 
we  must  wait  our  turn.  Kulman  became  anxious  and 
fidgety,  especially  when,  looking  down  the  stairs,  he 
saw  some  Turks  in  the  hall. 

Standing  near  us  in  the  corridor  were  two  elderly 
Jews,  who  appeared  to  listen  intently  when  Kulman 
thought  fit  to  emphasize  my  uniform  by  addressing  me 
in  Russian.  Presently  one  of  them  produced  an  un- 
lighted  cigarette,  and,  also  speaking  in  Russian,  asked 
me  for  a  match.  -Without  a  word  I  compHed,  while 
Kulman,  by  himself  beginning  a  conversation,  forestalled 
the  suspicions  which  would  have  arisen  if  the  Jew  had 
begun  to  question  me.  I  avoided  speaking  to  them  by 
again  visiting  the  lady  secretary.  Later,  Kulman  drew 
me  aside  and  said  that  it  was  impossible  to  remain  any 
longer  with  the  two  Russian-speaking  Jews. 

His  nerves — and  mine  also,  for  that  matter — be-, 
came  still  more  shaky  when,  as  we  passed  through  the 
hall  doorway,  the  porter  stared  hard  at  me  and  then 
followed  us  with  his  eyes  until  we  turned  into  a  side 
street  that  took  us  out  of  sight. 

Although  I  had  failed  for  the  moment  to  reach  Mr.  S., 
It  was  imperative  that  one  of  us  should  see  him.  A  new 
method  of  approach  was  advisable,  for  I  believed  that 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         225 

the  porter  half  thought  he  recognized  me.  If  I  re- 
turned he  would  be  more  than  ever  suspicious  of  the 
scars;  for  everybody  in  the  Prisoners  of  War  Bureau 
had  heard  of  my  escape.  The  only  alternative  was  for 
White  to  go.  His  disguise  as  Turk  would  be  useless, 
as  most  people  at  the  Legation  spoke  Turkish  well, 
whereas  he  spoke  it  indifferently,  with  an  accent  that 
reeked  of  English  vowel-sounds.  We  canvassed  vari- 
ous nationalities  and  roles,  and  agreed  that  he  must 
accuse  himself  of  being  one  of  the  American  mis- 
sionaries who  were  still  at  liberty  in  Turkey. 

Wearing  my  suit  of  mufti  and  the  felt  hat  which  I 
bought  on  the  day  I  escaped.  White  shook  hands  and 
left  me,  after  a  reminder  that  if  he  were  captured  my 
clothes  would  go  to  prison  with  him.  He  was  far  from 
cheerful,  for  it  was  Friday,  the  thirteenth  of  September; 
and  he  remembered  that  his  capture  in  Mesopotamia 
had  taken  place  on  Friday,  the  thirteenth  of  Septem- 
ber, 191 5. 

Anxiously  and  uncomfortably,  I  waited  through 
several  hours  of  strained  inactivity,  fearing  that  if 
White,  also,  were  recognized  at  the  Prisoners'  Bureau, 
disaster  might  overtake  not  only  him,  but  our  bene- 
factor Mr.  S. 

At  six  o'clock  he  burst  into  the  wireless  cabin  with  a 
beaming  face  and  the  joyous  announcement: 

"  I've  seen  S.,  and  the  money's  not  lost." 

White's  '  Friday,  the  thirteenth  of  September,  had 
been  an  exciting  one.  He  walked  into  the  doorway  of 
the  Prisoners  of  War  Bureau,  and  speaking  in  English, 
asked  for  Mr.  S. 

"Name.?"  inquired  the  porter. 


226  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

"Mr.  Henry  O'Neill,  from  Tarsus." 

"Do  you  know  Mr.  S.?'* 

"Why,  certainly,  Fm  a  friend  of  his."  And  White 
felt  in  his  waistcoat  pocket,  as  if  searching  for  a  card. 

"His  office  is  on  the  first  floor,"  said  the  porter, 
satisfied.     "Go  straight  up." 

With  a  gulp  of  relief  White  passed  up  the  stairway. 
Like  myself  on  the  day  before,  he  had  to  wait  many 
minutes  before  Mr.  S.  was  disengaged;  and  like  myself 
he  was  horrified  to  see  Levy,  the  Jew  kavass  who  had 
brought  his  letters  and  parcels  to  Gumuch  Souyou 
Hospital.  The  kavass  beamed,  and  delivered  himself 
of  an  oily  greeting,  but  failed  to  remember  where  he 
had  met  White. 

"You  speak  as  an  Englishman,"  he  said,  after  a  few 
words  of  conversation.  "You  are  a  English  prisoner, 
not?" 

"Of  course  I'm  an  English  prisoner,"  admitted 
White,  slapping  Levy  on  the  back.  "My  guard's  wait- 
ing outside." 

The  kavass  fetched  a  chair  for  White  and  seemed  dis- 
posed to  ask  more  troublesome  questions.  Just  then 
the  visitor  who  had  been  engaged  with  Mr.  S.  left  the 
office,  and  White  walked  inside,  praying  that  the  kavass 
and  the  porter  would  not  compare  notes,  and  identify 
Mr.  Henry  O'Neill,  of  Tarsus,  with  the  British  pris- 
oner whose  guard  was  waiting  in  the  street. 

The  door  being  closed  White  explained  his  real 
identity  to  Mr.  S.,  and  offered  apologies  for  the  danger- 
ous visit  to  which  he  had  been  forced  by  our  desperate 
situation. 

"You  needn't  worry  about  the  money,"  said  Mr.  S., 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         227 

"I  had  no  chance  of  paying  it.  Fve  destroyed  the 
cheques." 

He  went  on  to  relate  how,  not  wishing  to  trust  the 
Greek  waiter  with  a  large  sum,  he  had  sent  a  clerk 
to  pay  the  banknotes  into  the  hands  of  TitofF,  at  the 
Maritza.  The  clerk  visited  the  little  restaurant  on  the 
afternoon  when  TitofF  waited  in  vain  for  Theodore.  He 
dared  not  deliver  the  money  there  and  then,  for  a  Turk 
appeared  to  be  watching  the  Russian  engineer.  When 
TitofF  tired  of  waiting  and  went  into  the  street  the  Turk 
followed,  and  shadowed  him.  The  clerk,  in  his  turn, 
trailed  the  Turkish  agent  unobtrusively.  The  three 
of  them  travelled  in  the  same  subway  car  from  Galata 
to  Pera.  TitofF  passed  into  Taxim  Gardens.  So  did 
the  agent  and  the  clerk.  He  sat  down  and  ordered  a 
drink  near  the  bandstand.  The  agent  chose  a  table 
near  him,  and  the  clerk  stationed  himself  within  sight 
of  both.  At  last,  giving  up  hope  of  an  opportunity  to 
speak  with  TitofF,  the  clerk  returned  to  Mr.  S.  and  gave 
back  the  money. 

Mr.  S.,  meanwhile,  had  heard  of  the  capture  of  Yeats- 
Brown,  Fulton,  and  Stone,  all  of  whom  he  had  helped. 
He  realized  that  he  himself  was  in  grave  danger. 

"Fve  had  some  sleepless  nights  over  you  fellows," 
he  said  to  White.  "I  rather  think  IVe  been  watched 
since  the  others  were  taken  with  Theodore,  and  I  know 
your  friend  TitofFs  watched.  If  Theodore  blabs  in 
prison,  my  neck  will  be  almost  as  near  the  noose  as  his." 

Mr.  S.,  very  rightly,  was  unwilling  to  advance  us 
money  for  the  present. 

"The  police  want  you  badly,"  he  pointed  out,  "and 
Fm  probably  a  suspect  already  over  Yeats-Brown  and 


228  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Company.  If  you're  grabbed  in  Constantinople  I 
want  to  be  able  to  say  with  a  clear  conscience  that  I've 
given  you  no  cash  since  you  escaped.  I  shall  know 
when  the  Batoum  is  due  to  leave,  and  do  my  best  to 
help  you  on  the  day  before  she  sails,  when  you're  all  but 
out  of  the  wood.  The  difficulty  will  be  in  finding  a 
messenger.  An  English  lady*  helped  the  fellows  who 
were  retaken,  and  she'd  like  to  take  you  the  money. 
But  she's  involved  over  them  and  the  police  are  watch- 
ing her." 

Deeply  appreciative  of  the  great  risks  which  Mr.  S. 
was  taking  on  behalf  of  not  only  us,  but  every  prisoner 
who  had  tried  to  escape  from  Constantinople,  White 
thanked  him  and  left.  At  the  top  of  the  stairs  he  said 
good-bye  to  the  kavass  who  knew  him  as  a  prisoner;  at 
the  front  door  he  nodded  to  the  porter  who  knew  him 
as  Mr.  Henry  O'Neill,  of  Tarsus.  And  so  back  to  his 
role  of  paying  guest  on  the  Batoum. 

With  eased  minds  and  renewed  hope  we  continued 
to  live  in  our  wireless  cabin,  and  prayed  to  Allah  that 
the  Batoum  would  sail  soon,  and  that  Mr.  S.  would  find 
some  means  of  sending  the  money.  Away  in  the  dis- 
tance we  could  see  the  citadel  of  the  Turkish  Ministr}^ 
of  War,  in  which  Yeats-Brown,  Fulton,  and  Stone  were 
dungeoned.  All  Constantinople  talked  of  the  capture, 
and  the  word  went  round  the  cafes  that  Theodore  was 
to  be  hanged  as  a  traitor,  for  having  helped  enemy  pris- 
oners to  escape. 

Thereupon  Titoff,  mortally  afraid  for  his  own  neck, 
wanted  to  get  rid  of  White  and  me.  He  made  our  short- 
age of  ready  money  an  excuse  for  ordering  us  ashore; 

*Miss  Whittaker. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         229 

but  we  claimed  to  have  grown  too  fond  of  him  to  part 
company,  and  said  that  if  we  did  leave  the  ship  it  would 
be  to  give  ourselves  up  to  the  police,  with  the  request 
that  our  friend  and  colleague  Michael  Ivanovitch  TitofF 
should  join  us  to  prison.  Michael  Ivanovitch  then 
protested,  out  of  the  kindness  of  his  heart,  that  he  would 
take  us  to  Odessa  whether  we  paid  the  full  amount  or 
only  part  of  it. 

So  the  anxious  hours  passed,  until  at  last  the  sicken- 
ing period  of  delay  ended  with  the  arrival  of  a  consign- 
ment of  cargo.  A  succession  of  lighters  left  the  quay 
and  moored  alongside  us,  and  all  day  we  listened  with 
delight  to  the  clatter  and  whirr  of  the  winches  as  they 
transferred  bales  and  barrels  to  the  Batourns  hatches. 
The  final  and  infallible  date  of  departure,  announced 
the  Turkish  merchant  who  had  chartered  the  ship  for 
her  voyage  to  Odessa,  was  September  the  twenty- 
second — four  days  later. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   CITY  OF  DISGUISES 

Constantinople,  even  at  its  most  normal,  has  ever 
been  a  city  of  concealment — concealed  motives,  con- 
cealed truths  and  falsehoods,  concealed  cruelties  and 
concealed  persons.  There,  the  way  to  a  treaty,  a  change 
of  government,  a  concession  or  a  commercial  contract 
is  often  through  back  doors  and  curtained  corridors, 
with  many  a  halt  for  whispered  promises,  whispered 
betrayals,  and  the  handing  over  of  baksheesh. 

When  normal  life  is  upset  by  abnormal  conditions  the 
cauldron  of  crookedness  bubbles  over  with  a  thousand 
and  one  conspiracies.  Every  other  man  is  intriguing 
for  himself,  his  safety,  his  pocket,  his  party,  his  family, 
or  his  government  appointment,  or  from  sheer  in- 
ability not  to  intrigue.  Such  a  period  was  the  late 
summer  of  191 8,  when  we  were  disguised  spectators  of 
the  misery  and  oppression  that  preceded  the  downfall 
of  the  Turkish  Empire. 

Four-fifths  of  the  population,  including  the  Turks 
themselves,  were  deadly  sick  of  war  and  wanted  peace 
at  any  price.  They  hated  the  Germans,  and  above  all 
hated  Enver  Pasha  and  other  Young  Turk  dictators, 
who  ruled  by  violence  with  the  support  of  the  Germans. 
Only  the  politicians,  the  officials  who  lived  by  corrup- 
tion, and  the  speculators  were  against  a  separate  peace. 

230 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  231 

Many  a  time,  before  I  escaped,  I  heard  curses  on 
Enver  and  on  the  Germans  uttered  by  civilians,  by  offi- 
cers, and  even  by  guards.  Once,  when  a  party  of  us 
were  sitting  in  Petits  Champs  Gardens,  a  waiter  brought 
with  the  bill  for  tea  a  slip  of  paper  on  which  he  had  writ- 
ten "Vive  TAngleterre!"  Later,  dressed  as  a  sailor 
and  sitting  in  the  cafes  with  Kulman,  I  often  heard  the 
same  sentiments  expressed. 

Yet  the  miserable,  exploited  populace  seemed  power- 
less to  impress  its  wishes  on  the  Government.  It  was 
too  disunited  and  too  listless  for  action.  A  total  lack 
of  national  consciousness  made  Constantinople  a  cap- 
ital without  a  country.  The  population  was  a  hap- 
hazard jumble  of  races,  an  olla  podrida  of  peoples  that 
nothing,  not  even  hunger  and  tyranny,  could  mould 
into  a  coherent  whole.  They  murmured  individually, 
but  collectively  they  remained  resigned  and  silent. 

If  circulation  be  the  test  of  a  city's  vitality  it  proved 
Constantinople  to  be  at  very  low  ebb.  All  Mediter- 
ranean peoples  move  slowly  in  the  streets;  but  the  Con- 
stantinopolitans  of  191 8,  I  noticed,  seemed  to  get  no- 
where; they  crawled  about  aimlessly,  or  leaned  against 
the  walls  and  doorways  in  fatalistic  inaction,  waiting 
for  something  to  happen. 

In  any  case,  the  least  attempt  at  organized  protest 
was  likely  to  lead  to  sudden  disappearances.  The  dun- 
geons of  Stamboul  jail  were  crammed  with  Greek,  Ar- 
menian, and  Turkish  suspects;  the  infamous  "Hall  of 
Justice,"  in  the  Ministry  of  War,  echoed  the  cries  of 
prisoners  whose  interrogators  extracted  "information" 
by  means  of  the  bastinado.  Open  malcontents  were 
hanged  daily. 


232         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Every  decent-living  person  was  likely  to  feel  the  ten- 
tacles of  Young  Turk  tyranny,  as  personified  by  Bedri 
Bey,  Prefect  of  Police,  and  Djevad  Bey,  Military  Gov- 
ernor of  Constantinople.  Only  the  unrighteous  flour- 
ished. The  speculation  and  graft  were  colossal,  and 
beyond  the  most  extravagant  dreams  of  the  British 
brand  of  war  profiteer.  Everybody  was  on  the  make. 
Ministers  and  high  officials  received  huge  bribes,  little 
politicians  made  little  fortunes  by  acting  as  go-be- 
tweens, rich  merchants  manipulated  so  as  to  get  hun- 
dreds per  cent,  profit. 

To  take  but  a  few  of  the  swindles  that  I  remember 
from  my  Constantinople  days,  there  were:  the  Smyrna 
sugar  affaire^  involving  the  barefaced  theft  of  twenty 
truckloads  of  a  consignment  from  Austria;  the  tobacco 
swindle,  which  made  three  directors  of  the  Regie  very 
wealthy  men  within  a  month;  the  cocaine  and  quinine 
corner,  engineered  by  a  few  Jewish  speculators,  so  that 
for  a  time  the  doctors  could  obtain  these  drugs  only  at 
the  price  of  a  hundred  pounds  a  kilo;  the  oil  scandal, 
the  wood  scandal,  and  the  widespread  flour-adultera- 
tion scandal,  whereby  the  lowest  grade  of  bread,  which 
was  all  that  the  poor  could  aflPord,  became  not  only 
unnourishing  but  inedible. 

There  being  no  system  of  rationing,  only  the  well-to- 
do  could  buy  the  dearer  necessities  of  ordinary  life. 
The  poor  remained  sugarless,  for  example,  because  sugar 
cost  from  two  pounds  sterling  a  kilo;  and  the  chances 
were  that  even  when  bought  at  that  price  it  would 
have  been  mixed  with  powdered  marble.  Thou- 
sands actually  starved;  while  the  beautiful  island  of 
Prinkipo,  with  its  summer  palaces  and  villas,  swarmed 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         233 

With  oily,  scoundrelly,  enormously  wealthy  Levantine 
vulgarians. 

Some  of  the  Ministers  traded  openly.  Enver  Pasha 
and  his  associates  owned  two  of  the  largest  shops  in 
Stamboul.  The  Committee  of  Union  and  Progress, 
a  vampire  of  corruption  that  drained  the  very  life  blood 
of  Turkey,  engaged  enthusiastically  in  the  orgy  of 
speculation,  and,  by  controlling  the  transport,  amassed 
millions  for  their  party.  These  sums  the  Committee 
had  begun  to  invest  in  Switzerland  and  elsewhere  as 
early  as  191 7;  so  that  when  the  crash  came  Enver, 
Talaat,  and  other  Young  Turk  leaders  were  able  to 
abscond  with  bulging  pockets. 

The  police,  of  course,  shared  in  the  plunder,  and  dab- 
bled in  every  species  of  blackmail.  They  waxed  fat 
on  the  system  that  entitled  them  to  see  the  vecikas 
(identity  papers)  of  any  able-bodied  man  at  any  time. 
As  the  city  contained  many  thousands  of  deserters, 
without  taking  into  account  those  who  obtained  exemp- 
tion from  military  service  by  continued  bribes  to  re- 
cruiting officers  and  gendarmes,  this  was  a  profitable 
responsibility.  A  forged  vecika,  properly  stamped,  cost 
anything  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  dollars.  To  buy  oflF  a 
policeman  when  unprovided  with  a  vecika  was  more 
speculative.  A  solitary  gendarme,  alone  in  a  dark 
street,  might  be  content  to  accept  twenty-five  dollars; 
whereas  two  gendarmes  together  could  be  persuaded 
only  with  difficulty  to  accept  twenty,  their  mutual 
dignity  and  that  of  their  official  positions  having  to  be 
maintained  in  face  of  each  other. 

The  city  was  full  of  suppressed  identities.  Deserters 
were  as  common  as  nuts  in  May,  and  so  were  disguises. 


234         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

An  enormous  game  of  hide-and-seek  was  in  progress, 
with  poHce  baksheesh  as  the  forfeit  for  being  caught. 

When  a  rich  man — ^Turk,  Greek,  Jew,  or  Armenian — ■ 
was  conscripted  he  could  always  pretend  sickness,  bribe 
the  miHtary  doctor  to  send  him  to  a  hospital,  bribe  the 
hospital  doctor  who  examined  him,  and  finally  bribe 
the  medical  board  to  give  him  leave.  At  the  larger 
hospitals  of  Constantinople,  such  as  Haidar  Pasha  and 
Gumuch  Souyou,  the  recognized  tariff  was  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  dollars  for  each  month's  leave,  with 
pretended  complaints  suggested  by  the  doctor  by  way 
of  bonus. 

The  discontent  and  the  misery  twice  showed  itself 
in  shots  at  Enver  Pasha,  as  he  drove  through  the  streets 
in  his  Mercedes;  but  the  bullets  either  missed  him  or 
flattened  themselves  on  the  chain  mail  which  he  was 
reputed  to  wear. 

Otherwise  its  outward  manifestation  was  confined 
to  the  spreading  of  rumours  indicative  of  an  early  vic- 
tory for  the  Allies.  The  "Tatavla  Agency,"  so-named 
from  a  district  inhabitated  by  Greek  merchants,  was 
the  centre  of  anti-German  propaganda.  From  it, 
even  at  the  time  of  Hindenburg's  last  great  drive,  there 
spread  the  wildest  reports  of  Ententist  successes.  Some, 
no  doubt,  were  concocted  to  influence  the  Bourse;  but 
the  object  of  most  was  to  encourage  the  starving  popula- 
tion in  their  hopes  for  the  downfall  of  the  Young  Turco- 
German  regime. 

No  statement  was  too  far-fetched  to  be  believed  in 
the  bazaars  and  cafes.  When  the  British  aeroplanes 
renewed  their  bomb-raids  on  Constantinople,  in  the 
autumn  of  191 8,  Yeats-Brown  dropped  hints  that  the 


EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS         235 

attacks  were  not  the  work  of  the  British,  but  were  a 
display  of  German  frightfulness,  to  show  what  would 
happen  if  Turkey's  loyalty  to  Germany  wavered.  After 
an  interval  of  weeks  this  beautiful  lie  was  whispered 
back  to  him  by  a  Greek,  with  well-imagined  circum- 
stances and  details  to  make  it  the  more  plausible. 

Captain  Yeats-Brown  and  Captain  Sir  Robert  Paul 
lived  through  the  most  extravagant  adventures  before 
the  Turkish  armistice  found  them  still  in  disguised 
liberty.  They  first  escaped  with  the  help  of  Miss 
Whittaker,  "the  Edith  Cavell  of  Constantinople."  It 
was  owing  to  her  that,  already  before  leaving  the  prison 
at  Psamatia,  they  were  well  supplied  with  money  and 
could  look  forward  to  a  hiding-place.  As  prisoners, 
they  had  kept  in  touch  with  her  by  means  of  letters, 
five-minute  meetings  outside  the  British  Church,  and 
short  conversations  in  the  park,  under  the  complacent 
eyes  of  a  bribed  guard. 

One  night  they  slipped  through  the  window  of  their 
room  in  the  prison-house,  and  having  climbed  along  a 
narrow  ledge,  let  themselves  into  the  street  with  a  rope. 
Wearing  fezzes  and  with  their  faces  stained  brown, 
they  walked  to  Theodore's  house.  Afterward  they 
moved  to  the  room  prepared  for  them  in  Pera. 

A  few  days  later  Paul,  dressed  as  an  Arab,  left  Con- 
stantinople with  two  Greeks.  The  party  of  three 
crossed  the  Sea  of  Marmora  in  a  sailing-boat,  landed 
on  the  northern  coast,  and  began  tramping  toward  the 
Gulf  of  Enos,  where  a  boat  awaited  them. 

Unfortunately  for  Paul  the  description  of  him,  which 
the  Ministry  of  War  circulated,  mentioned  that  he  had 
a  prominent  stoop.    A  stranger  with  this  peculiarity 


236         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

was  found  asleep  in  the  church  of  a  Greek  village;  and 
by  arresting  him  the  local  gendarme  earned  (but  prob- 
ably never  received)  the  reward  offered  for  the  British 
officer's  capture.  Paul  was  brought  back  to  the  capital 
and  dungeoned  in  the  Ministry  of  War  Prison. 

Yeats-Brown,  meanwhile,  had  been  stalking  about 
the  streets  of  Constantinople  as  Mile.  Josephine  Albert, 
in  female  clothes  lent  by  Miss  Whittaker.  He  was  now 
at  a  loose  end,  for  Paul  and  the  Greeks  were  to  have 
been  the  advance  guard  of  a  larger  party,  including 
Yeats-Brown  and  several  civiHans  who  wished  to  leave 
Turkey. 

After  weeks  of  excitement  in  the  City  of  Disguises 
Mile.  Albert  received  an  unexpected  message  from 
two  old  friends,  who  were  living  in  a  back  room  of  Theo- 
dore's house.  Fulton  and  Stone  had  escaped  from  a 
train  at  Haidar  Pasha  station  two  hours  after  my  dis- 
appearance from  the  ferry  stage.  With  the  help  of  my 
map  they  made  their  way  by  moonlight  to  San  Stefano 
aerodrome.  There  they  waited  for  three  days  at  the 
place  of  rendezvous  appointed  by  John  Willie,  the 
Bosnian  aviator.  Made  desperate  by  his  nonappear- 
ance one  of  them  called  at  the  German  officers'  mess  and 
enquired  for  him;  but,  as  they  then  learned,  John  Willie 
had  been  arrested  a  week  earlier  as  a  suspect,  and  was  in 
the  Ministry  of  War  Prison,  awaiting  court-martial. 

Fulton  and  Stone  returned  to  Constantinople,  and 
bribed  Theodore  to  hide  them  in  his  house.  They  were 
visited  by  Miss  Whittaker,  who  brought  money  from 
Mr.  S.,  and  by  Mile.  Josephine  Albert  Yeats-Brown. 

For  want  of  a  better  opportunity  the  three  British 
officers  planned  to  buy  a  small  saihng-boat,  and  take  it 


Captain  Yeates-Brown,  wearing  the  disguise  in  which  as  "Mile.  Jose- 
phine Albert"  he  lived  for  several  weeks  in  Constantinople  while  doing 
propaganda  work.  The  clothes  were  lent  to  him  by  Miss  Whittaker 
(now  Lady  Paul),  "the  Edith  Cavell  of  Constantinople,"  who  helped 
several  British  officers  to  escape  from  the  Turks. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         237 

across  the  Black  Sea.  Prince  Avaloff,  the  Georgian 
officer  who  was  a  semi-prisoner  at  Psamatia,  had  kept 
in  touch  with  Yeats-Brown,  and  promised  to  accompany 
them.  Having  landed  somewhere  near  Poti  their 
scheme  would  be  to  make  for  AvalofF's  estate  in  Georgia. 
It  was  at  this  period  that  White  and  I  heard  from  the 
trio,  as  a  result  of  TitofF's  visit  to  Theodore. 

For  many  weeks  the  Maritza  restaurant  had  been 
watched.  A  police  spy  suspected  Theodore;  and  one 
afternoon  gendarmes  surrounded  his  house,  while  others 
entered  and  searched  every  room.  Very  unfortunately 
for  Yeats-Brown,  whose  hiding-place  lay  elsewhere,  he 
was  visiting  Fulton  and  Stone  at  the  time.  All  three 
were  captured. 

A  queer  procession  passed  through  the  winding  alleys 
of  Stamboul  to  the  Ministry  of  War  Prison.  First 
went  Theodore,  blinking  nervously  behind  his  blue- 
glassed  spectacles.  Then  came  Yeats-Brown,  in  his 
brand-new  disguise  of  a  Hungarian  mechanic.  Fulton 
and  Stone  were  behind  him,  wearing  only  shirts,  pants, 
and  socks;  for  they  had  been  half  dressed  when  captured, 
and  the  poHce  refused  permission  to  put  on  coats  and 
trousers.  Theodore's  two  sisters  and  his  old  mother 
brought  up  the  rear. 

When  the  police  surrounded  Theodore's  house  Miss 
Whittaker  was  on  her  way  to  visit  Fulton  and  Stone. 
Seeing  gendarmes  before  the  door  she  passed  on,  and 
returned  to  her  home  in  Pera;  but  for  long  afterward 
she  was  conscious  of  being  spied  upon  and  followed.  It 
was  for  this  reason  that  she  had  to  abandon  her  inten- 
tion of  bringing  to  the  Batoum  the  money  which  White 
and  I  were  to  receive  from  Mr.  S. 


238         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

The  prison  beneath  the  Ministry  of  War  now  con- 
tained an  extraordinary  gathering  of  characters  in  the 
melodrama  of  escape  and  capture.  Paul  was  joined 
by  Yeats-Brown,  Fulton,  and  Stone;  John  Willie,  the 
Bosnian,  was  in  another  cell,  with  some  political  pris- 
oners; Theodore,  weakened  by  lack  of  food,  fell  ill  in  a 
dreadful  dungeon,  and  nearly  died.  A  trial,  he  knew, 
could  only  have  one  result  for  him — sentence  of  hang- 
ing. His  mother  and  his  two  sisters  received  rather 
better  treatment,  and  were  soon  released. 

The  four  Britishers  lived  through  many  strange  days 
in  the  prison  where  they  consorted  with  a  variety  of 
captives  that  included  Greeks,  Armenians,  Turkish 
officers,  two  Mohammedan  notabilities  from  Cairo,  a 
young  Turkish  prince  who  had  been  imprisoned  for 
brawling  in  the  Sultan's  palace,  and  the  prince's  eunuch. 
Yeats-Brown  and  Paul,  meantime,  planned  to  escape 
from  the  famous  old  jail,  a  feat  which  no  captive 
had  yet  performed  since  it  was  built,  six  hundred 
years  ago. 

While  walking  in  the  garden  one  evening  they  slipped 
away  from  their  guards,  and  mingled  with  a  crowd  of 
officials  who  were  crossing  the  courtyard  outside  the 
Ministry  of  War.  Swerving  aside  before  they  reached 
the  sentried  gate,  the  pair  cHmbed  over  some  railings — 
and  were  free  once  more.  They  walked  across  the 
Golden  Horn  Bridge,  and  so  to  Pera.  There,  once  again, 
Miss  Whittaker  and  her  friends  found  them  a  place  of 
concealment,  near  the  deserted  British  Embassy. 

Then  began  for  the  escaped  couple  a  period  of  flitting 
from  one  excitement  to  another.  They  became  in- 
volved in  a  succession  of  underground  activities;  and. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         239 

with  the  help  of  Greeks  and  the  clever  cooperation  of 
Miss  Whittaker,  they  spread  around  the  city  reports, 
beliefs,  hopes,  and  arguments  likely  to  influence  citizens 
in  favour  of  the  Allies  and  against  the  Germans  and 
Young  Turks.  They  buried  their  identities  under 
darkened  hair,  false  moustaches,  fezzes,  and  forged 
vecikas. 

Yeats-Brown's  propaganda  work  brought  him  into 
contact  with  a  small  group  of  politicians  and  malcon- 
tents who  were  plotting  a  coup  d'etat  against  the  Young 
Turks.  Although  the  miserable,  exploited  populace  had 
no  popular  leader  to  voice  its  discontent  there  came  a 
moment — ^while  the  Bulgars  were  at  the  gates  of  Adri- 
anople,  communications  with  Germany  were  cut,  the 
Allied  Fleet  threatened  Dedeagatch  and  the  citizens 
of  Aleppo  were  preparing  to  surrender  to  Allenby's 
victorious  cavalry — ^when  everyone  in  Constantinople 
knew  that  Turkey  was  beaten.  Open  rebellion  which 
was  to  have  hanged  Talaat,  Enver,  and  Djemal  Pashas 
high  in  the  square  of  the  Seraskarat  then  threatened. 

But  the  rising  was  still-born,  owing  to  treachery.  The 
Prefect  of  Police  suddenly  quadrupled  his  patrols,  a  few 
Turkish  officers  were  arrested,  a  few  more  civilians  were 
hanged,  a  few  conspirators  disappeared  into  the  sub- 
merged world  where  men  walked  cautiously  and  in  the 
shadow,  a  few  machine  guns  were  placed  so  as  to  com- 
mand a  Greek  cathedral,  a  couple  of  aged  senators  were 
executed  for  having  "intrigued  for  a  political  resolution 
hostile  to  the  Government'*;  and  life  went  on  as  be- 
fore— upon  the  surface.     ... 

But  escaped  prisoners  did  not  live  upon  the  surface. 
They  were  in  touch  with  seditious  elements  beneath  it. 


240  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Once  when  Yeats-Brown  was  in  a  certain  cafe  with 
some  Greeks,  and  the  talk  was  becoming  wild  as  the 
drak  bottle  passed,  there  entered  a  detective  known  to 
everybody,  even  to  the  British  officer,  who  was  the 
youngest  initiate  in  "crime"  present.  And  without  a 
whisper  or  a  wink  the  talk  swung,  easily  and  naturally, 
from  the  rankest  sedition  to  the  most  harmless  com- 
monplace. 

"We  will  destroy  the  Young  Turks!"  said  a  speaker, 
"we  will  destroy  the  Young  Turks  and  cut  them  in 
little  pieces!" 

He  was  harmonizing  his  words  with  indescribably 
graphic  gesture,  when  his  expressive  hands  opened  in  a 
bland  expression  of  resignation. 

"What,  therefore,  can  we  do,  my  friends?"  he  con- 
tinued. "We  must  remain  calm,  and  retain  our  dig- 
nity as  citizens  of  a  great  city."' 

Nobody  looked  round  or  betrayed  surprise;  but  the 
alien  presence  was  sensed  by  all.  Soon  after  this  scene 
the  meeting  adjourned  to  a  cellar,  where  a  quiet,  elderly 
gentleman,  the  proprietor  of  an  hotel  inhabited  chiefly 
by  German  officers,  declared  himself  desirous  of  cutting 
his  clients'  throats. 

In  war-time  Constantinople  one  grew  accustomed  to 
this  atmosphere  of  melodrama,  and  learned  not  to  re- 
gard it  too  seriously.  The  more  one  knows  of  the  Con- 
stantinopolitans  of  to-day  the  less  can  one  trust  any 
estimate  of  them.  Eternally  fickle,  like  their  fore- 
runners who  looked  on  with  equal  enthusiasm  at  the 
triumph  and  execution  of  emperors  and  sultans,  they 
saw  no  incongruity  in  the  city's  hero-worship  of  Enver 
Bey  in  1908  and  its  deep  detestation  of  Enver  Pasha  in 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         241 

191 8.  Even  now,  after  welcoming  the  French  and 
British  with  mad  joy  one  short  year  ago,  they  are  rest- 
less, and  again  wear  the  cloak  of  conspiracy. 

The  wayward  fickleness  of  Constantinople  ruined  the 
Byzantine  Greeks,  and  sapped  the  strength  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire.  Now,  after  a  long  period  of  fretful  wed- 
lock, she  is  shaking  herself  free  from  the  Turk.  Who- 
ever next  attempts  to  rule  her  will  have  some  restless 
days  and  nights. 

At  the  beginning  of  September  there  arrived  in  Con- 
stantinople another  escaped  prisoner,  who  was  to  play 
an  important  part  in  the  sensational  events  that  pre- 
ceded the  downfall  of  the  Young  Turks  and  their  Ger- 
man partners. 

Several  months  earlier  Lieutenant-Colonel  New- 
combe,  D.S.O.,  R.E.,  had  been  imprisoned  in  the  Turk- 
ish Ministry  of  War,  while  awaiting  court-martial  for 
an  attempted  escape.  After  his  acquittal,  owing  to 
lack  of  evidence,  he  was  allowed  into  the  city  with  the 
prison  interpreter.  In  a  Pera  tea-shop  he  met  Mile. 
"X",  a  Franco-Greek  lady  of  Entente  sympathies,  who 
offered  to  help  him  in  any  way  possible.  A  secret  corre- 
spondence followed;  and  when  Colonel  Newcombe  was 
sent  to  the  prison  camp  at  Broussa,  Mile.  "X",  with 
her  maid,  followed  him. 

She  stayed  at  a  small  hotel,  on  the  pretence  of  taking 
the  sulphur  baths  for  which  Broussa  was  famous.  Sev- 
eral meetings  took  place,  including  a  rendezvous  at  the 
house  of  the  local  Austrian  Consul,  whose  daughters 
were  school-fellows  of  Mile.  "X." 

The  final  interview  at  Broussa  was  when  Colonel 
Newcombe,  having  obtained  the  clothes  of  an  Arab 


242         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

tmam*  disguised  himself  in  this  dress  and  slipped  out  of 
camp  unobserved.  He  walked  to  the  hotel,  and  there 
the  scheme  of  escape  was  definitely  arranged.  He 
then  returned,  and  by  climbing  over  a  wall,  got  back 
into  the  prison  house  without  being  seen. 

Mile.  "X"  left  Broussa  for  Constantinople.  On 
the  way  she  stopped  at  Mudania  (the  port  of  Broussa) 
to  bargain  with  two  Greek  boatmen,  who  agreed  to  take 
the  British  officer  across  the  Sea  of  Marmora.  From 
Constantinople  she  had  a  letter  smuggled  to  Broussa, 
explaining  how  the  boatmen  might  be  recognized. 

Having  read  the  letter  Colonel  Newcombe  again  dis- 
guised himself  as  an  Arab,  and  at  dusk  sHpped  away 
from  the  prison  house,  while  another  officer-prisoner 
distracted  the  guards'  attention  by  running  in  the  op- 
posite direction.  He  walked  all  night  by  moonlight, 
and  reached  Mudania  next  morning. 

Having  found  the  Greeks,  and  paid  a  hundred  dollars 
for  the  hire  of  their  boat,  he  put  to  sea  with  them.  A 
strong  wind  raged,  so  that  he  was  fourteen  hours  on  the 
Sea  of  Marmora,  living  during  this  time  on  bread  and 
raisins.  Finally  he  reached  Constantinople  and  went 
to  the  house  of  Mile.  "  X  "  's  parents. 

Like  White  and  myself.  Colonel  Newcombe  planned 
to  go  to  Russia.  He,  also,  had  his  fill  of  adventure. 
Once,  he  remained  safely  hidden  in  Miss  Whittaker's 
house  while  the  police  were  searching  it  for  Yeats- 
Brown  and  PauL 

He  wrote  several  anti-German  proclamations  for 
distribution  among  the  Turkish  soldiers,  and  concocted 
a  letter  to  the  Turkish  army  commanders,  advising 

*Priest. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         243 

them  to  refuse  further  service  unless  a  new  ministry 
were  formed.  But  the  Turco-German  debacle  in  the 
Near  East,  of  which  General  Allenby's  victories  in 
Palestine  and  the  Bulgarian  surrender  were  the  be- 
ginnings, made  him  abandon  this  work  for  something 
more  important.  Soon  he  found  himself  drawn  into 
the  very  centre  of  the  vortex  of  plotting  that  swirled 
around  the  Sultan,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Sublime  Porte. 

The  peace  parties  lacked  a  leader  powerful  enough 
to  take  open  action;  and  when  the  old  Sultan,  who  had 
been  but  a  puppet  dancing  to  the  strings  pulled  by 
Talaat  and  Enver,  died  in  July,  they  hoped  to  find  one 
in  his  brother,  the  successor  to  the  throne. 

The  new  ruler,  although  he  was  neither  strong  enough 
nor  able  enough  to  challenge  the  Young  Turk  leaders 
until  after  the  Bulgarian  armistice,  certainly  leaned 
toward  the  Entente  and  favoured  peace.  His  first 
act  was  to  send  for  the  only  English  tailor  in  Constanti- 
nople, a  civil  prisoner,  and  to  order  several  uniforms 
from  him. 

The  excitement  among  the  Turkish  politicians  was 
indescribable. 

"Have  you  heard  about  Mr.  Hayden,  the  English 
tailor?  The  Sultan  said  to  him "  And  ru- 
mour made  the  Sultan  tell  the  English  tailor  every- 
thing that  was  sensationally  anti-German  and  anti- 
Enver. 

Had  the  Sultan  opposed  the  Grand  Vizier  and  Enver 
Pasha  in  July,  he  would  have  found  support;  for  three- 
fourths  of  Constantinople  detested  the  Government. 
But  the  constabulary  were  faithful  to  Enver,  who  could 
likewise  have  relied  upon  the  many  thousands  of  Ger- 


244  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

men  troops  concentrated  in  the  city;  and  a  premature 
attempt  by  the  Sultan  to  withdraw  Turkey  from  the 
war  would  have  risked  his  life  and  his  throne. 

The  defection  of  Bulgaria  had  the  effect  of  an  un- 
expected cold  douche  on  Enver  and  Talaat;  who,  after 
the  Turkish  occupation  of  Batoum  and  capture  of  Baku, 
had  been  dreaming  of  a  Greater  Turkey  that  was  to 
include  the  Maritza  basin,  most  of  the  Dobrudja,  and 
the  whole  of  the  Caucasus  from  the  Black  Sea  to  the 
Caspian,  with  a  sphere  of  influence  extending  eastward 
to  Bokhara  and  Samarkand.  Agents  and  gramophone 
records  were  carrying  the  voice  of  Enver  all  over  the 
Moslem  world. 

When  the  Balkan  Railway  was  cut  and  daily  reports 
of  German  retreats  in  France  continued  to  arrive,  even 
the  Young  Turk  politicians  began  to  desert  the  rotten 
ship  of  state.  The  opposition  groups — the  Liberal, 
the  Navy,  and  the  Khoja  parties — raised  their  heads 
and  began  to  intrigue  for  a  complete  surrender  to  the 
Allies.  Djambolat  Bey,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
resigned.  Rahmi  Bey,  the  powerful  VaU  of  Smyrna, 
who  throughout  the  war  had  shown  every  consideration 
to  the  Entente  subjects  in  his  vilayet,  came  to  Constan- 
tinople with  the  avowed  intention  of  working  an  im- 
mediate peace.  Talaat  was  for  bargain  and  compro- 
mise. Only  Enver  Pasha  and  his  personal  followers 
remained  faithful  to  their  German  friends.  The  Sul- 
tan's chance  had  come. 

Colonel  Newcombe  decided  on  an  audacious  plan  of 
action.  He  wrote  a  convincing  memorandum,  which 
suggested  that  if  Turkey  now  sued  for  a  separate  peace 
she  would  obtain  better  terms  than  if  she  waited  until 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         245 

Germany  was  thoroughly  beaten.  This  memorandum, 
originally  the  draft  of  a  proposed  proclamation  to  the 
Turkish  army,  was  taken  by  Miss  Whittaker  to  a  Com- 
mittee politician  of  her  acquaintance.  Eventually  one 
copy  of  it  was  given  to  Fethi  Bey,  the  new  Minister  of 
the  Interior,  and  another  passed  through  the  hands  of 
the  Sultan's  dentist  to  the  Sultan  himself. 

A  week  earlier — on  September  the  twenty-ninth — 
the  Young  Turk  Cabinet  had  met  to  consider  the  Bul- 
garian demand  for  an  armistice;  and  the  Grand  Vizier, 
who  arrived  from  Germany  by  the  last  Balkan  express 
that  passed  through  Sofia,  offered  his  resignation.  At 
the  time  nobody  could  form  an  alternative  ministry 
so  Talaat  again  took  up  the  reins  of  power. 

The  Sultan  and  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  received 
their  copies  of  Colonel  Newcombe's  memorandum  on 
October  the  fifth.  During  the  intervening  days  it  had 
become  more  and  more  plain  that  Germany  was  doomed 
to  defeat.  The  Sultan  and  the  Peace  parties,  there- 
fore, only  wanted  a  suitable  bludgeon  for  a  coup  de 
grace  to  the  Ministry. 

They  found  it  in  this  purely  unofficial  communication 
from  an  escaped  prisoner  of  war.  Colonel  Newcombe's 
memorandum  was  produced  and  discussed  at  a  stormy 
council  of  the  Committee  of  Union  and  Progress,  which 
resulted  in  the  definite  resignation  of  Talaat  and  Enver. 
Tewfik  Pasha,  Izzet  Pasha,  and  other  Opposition  lead- 
ers were  called  into  consulation  by  the  Sultan. 

From  being  a  hunted  fugitive  Colonel  Newcombe 
suddenly  found  himself  a  person  of  consequence.  As 
a  special  favour  he  was  asked  not  to  carry  out  his  plans 
for  escaping  from  Turkey,  because  the  Ottoman  Govern- 


246         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

ment  believed  he  would  be  useful  in  arranging  an  armis- 
tice. He  met  the  Vali  of  Smyrna  at  the  Tokatlian 
Hotel,  and  there  the  British  prisoner  and  the  high  Turk- 
ish official  shook  hands  and  discussed  the  changing  in- 
ternational situation. 

On  October  the  sixteenth  Colonel  Newcombe,  ac- 
companied by  Miss  Whittaker,  went  by  appointment 
to  the  house  of  a  politician,  where  he  met  the  new  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior,  the  Vali  of  Smyrna,  and  other  nota- 
bilities. Over  the  dinner  table  the  mighty  questions  of 
peace  and  war  were  then  debated  by  an  escaped  prisoner 
of  war  and  a  prominent  Minister  of  the  country  in 
which  he  was  technically  still  a  captive. 

Colonel  Newcombe  explained  that  though  he  worked 
for  AlHed  and  not  Turkish  interests,  his  friendly  advice 
was  that  the  Ottoman  Government  should  sue  immedi- 
ately for  a  separate  armistice;  because  whereas  Germany 
wanted  to  keep  a  weak  Turkey  whom  she  could  domi- 
nate, the  Allies'  principle  of  the  rights  of  nationality 
forbade  any  idea  of  complete  domination. 

The  Turks'  attitude  at  this  curious  meeting  was 
summed  up  in  remarks  made  by  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior: 

"We  know  we  have  lost  our  chance.  There  have 
been  mistakes  in  the  past.  We  are  practically  bank- 
rupt. But  we  honestly  hate  the  Germans,  and,  with- 
out kowtowing  to  the  British,  look  to  them  to  help  us 
and  to  be  our  friends,  as  we  want  to  be  friends  with 
them." 

Colonel  Newcombe  and  the  Turkish  officials  thrashed 
out  such  questions  as  Turkey's  financial  bankruptcy, 
the   opening   of  the    Dardanelles,   the   capitulations, 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         247 

autonomy  for  Armenia  and  Arabia,  and  punishment 
for  the  Armenian  massacres  and  for  the  maltreatment 
of  British  prisoners  from  Kut-el-Amara  (whereby 
nearly  80  per  cent,  of  the  latter  had  died).  Then,  after 
dinner  was  over,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  dictated 
in  French  a  long  telegram,  which  the  British  officer  was 
to  send  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George  as  soon  as  he  should  reach 
Allied    territory. 

Next  day  the  Ministry  tried  to  send  him  out  of  Tur- 
key by  aeroplane,  but  failed  because  all  aircraft  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  It  was  agreed  that  he 
should  receive  special  passports  and  proceed,  via 
Smyrna,  to  either  Chios  or  Mudros. 

After  the  dinner  party  of  the  sixteenth  events  moved 
rapidly  toward  an  armistice.  The  Vali  of  Smyrna 
caused  a  sensation  two  days  later  by  stating  openly,  in 
the  Journal  d'Orient,  that  peace  negotiations  were 
in  progress  and  that  the  Germans  would  have  to  go. 
Later  in  the  day  he  again  met  Colonel  Newcombe  at 
the  Tokatlian  Hotel,  and  discussed  the  best  means 
of  approaching  England  for  an  armistice.  By  now  the 
escaped  colonel  was  going  about  Constantinople  quite 
openly,  although  Yeats-Brown  and  Paul  remained 
more  or  less  in  hiding. 

Meanwhile,  General  Townshend,  who  was  still  a  pris- 
oner on  Prinkipo  Island,  had  also  sent  a  memorandum 
to  the  Government.  A  Turkish  armistice  commission 
was  formed,  and  he  was  asked  by  the  Grand  Vizier  to 
accompany  the  delegates  who  were  about  to  leave  the 
country;  which  he  did.  It  was  arranged  that  Colonel 
Newcombe  would  follow  in  a  few  days'  time. 

On  his  last  night  in  Constantinople  Colonel  New- 


248  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

combe  went  by  appointment  to  the  terrace  of  the  de- 
serted British  Embassy,  and  there  met  Captain  Yeats- 
Brown,  who  had  sHpped  past  the  poHce  into  the  Em- 
bassy grounds.  It  was  a  meeting  that  neither  of  them 
will  ever  forget.  Below  was  the  Golden  Horn,  shim- 
mering in  the  moonlight,  and  across  its  waters  Stam- 
boul  showed  up  dimly,  quiet  and  apparently  asleep. 
But  the  watchers  on  the  Embassy  terrace  knew  that 
the  city  might  stir  from  slumber  at  any  moment;  for  the 
Phanar  was  bristling  with  machine  guns,  St.  Sophia 
was  an  armed  camp,  and,  more  terrible  than  all,  people 
were  starving  in  the  streets.  The  waning  sickle  moon 
that  rode  above  Stamboul  seemed  the  symbol  of  the 
Turks'  waning  dominion  over  Christian  peoples.  Very 
soon  the  Crescent  would  go  down.  Very  soon  the  Union 
Jack  would  float  from  the  Embassy's  barren  flagstaff. 
Very  soon  Pera  would  be  decked  with  banners,  and 
an  Allied  fleet  would  proclaim  an  end  to  the  nightmare 
of  famine  and  oppression. 

Next  day  Colonel  Newcombe,  who  had  been  handed 
civiUan  passports  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  travel- 
led from  Constantinople  to  Smyrna.  Finally  he  left 
Turkey,  as  a  special  adviser,  in  the  company  of  Raouf 
Bey,  the  new  Minister  of  Marine.  The  party  put  to 
sea  in  a  trawler,  and  were  picked  up  by  H.M.S.  Liver- 
pool, They  were  taken  to  Mudros,  where  the  British 
Admiral  Commander-in-Chief  and  General  Townshend 
Were  already  negotiating  with  the  Turkish  delegates. 

Up  to  the  very  end  the  Young  Turk  leaders  hoped  to 
hold  the  real,  if  not  the  ostensible,  control  in  Constanti- 
nople. Captain  Yeats-Brown  was  told  by  a  politician 
that  "nobody  but  Talaat  could  possibly  manage  Tur- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         249 

key,"  and  that  "the  English,  if  they  come,  would  be 
well  advised  to  deal  with  the  Committee  of  Union  and 
Progress,  as  there  is  no  other  real  party  in  the  country. 
They  not  only  have  all  the  money,  but  all  the  brains  and 
energy  as  well."     Which  last  statement  was  nearly  true. 

But  when  it  came  to  saying  that  Talaat  was  one  of 
the  dominant  brains  of  the  century,  and  comparable 
as  a  statesman  only  to  Lloyd  George,  the  disguised  Brit- 
ish officer  could  not  help  smihng  and  suggesting:  "Surely 
Talaat  is  not  indispensable?  If  he  goes,  another  ex- 
telegraphist  may  arise,  as  good  as  he!" 

This  the  members  of  the  Committee  of  Union  and 
Progress  regarded  as  near-blasphemy;  but  the  fact 
that  all  the  Young  Turk  leaders  were  self-made  men, 
with  little  knowledge  of  the  science  and  history  of  mod- 
ern government,  was  one  of  the  causes  why  Von  Wan- 
genheim.  Von  BernstorfF,  and  other  emissaries  of  Ger- 
man Imperialism  were  able,  for  four  years,  to  inspire 
a  policy  of  Turkey  for  the  Germans. 

The  sudden  volte  face  of  the  Turkish  press,  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  armistice  terms,  the  flight  of  the 
three  chief  criminals  (Talaat,  Enver,  and  Djemal 
Pashas),  and  the  downfall  of  the  swaggering  Germans 
brought  great  joy  to  the  miserable  populace  of  Con- 
stantinople. They  vented  their  feelings  in  delirious 
enthusiasm  over  some  released  prisoners  who  visited 
Pera,  wearing  their  carefully  hoarded  khaki  uniforms. 

The  curtain  was  down,  the  sordid  tragedy  of  op- 
pression and  corruption  was  over.  The  new  era  opened 
in  the  mist  of  a  November  morning,  with  the  long,  low 
lines  of  an  Allied  fleet  steaming  very  slowly  past  the 
lies  des  Princes  toward  the  Bosphorus. 


CHAPTER  XV 

STOWAWAYS,   INC. 

TiTOFF  was  head  of  a  syndicate  of  ship's  officers  which 
might  have  named  itself  ** Stowaways,  Incorporated." 
He  was  the  schemer-in-chief;  and  the  others,  while  dis- 
liking him  heartily,  were  content  to  rely  on  his  supe- 
rior cunning.  Besides  ourselves  the  syndicate  under- 
took to  carry  across  the  Black  Sea  a  Greek,  a  Jewess 
(both  of  them  wanted  by  the  Turkish  poHce),  and  four 
passportless  prostitutes;  all  of  whom,  to  the  extent  of 
some  hundred  dollars  apiece,  wished  to  leave  Constan- 
tinople for  Odessa. 

Most  of  the  crew,  also,  were  smuggling  men,  women, 
or  material  across  the  Black  Sea.  The  crew  itself  included 
four  Russian  soldiers,  who  had  escaped  from  prison  camps 
in  Turkey,  and  were  passing  themselves  off  as  sea- 
men. The  bo'sun's  particular  line  of  business  was  a 
woman  thief  who  had  with  her  a  heavy  purse  and  a  trunk 
full  of  property,  stolen  from  a  merchant  who  had  been 
her  dear  friend.  Katrina,  the  kitchen  girl  who  brought 
us  our  food,  invested  in  a  well-to-do  Turkish  deserter. 

As  for  the  non-human  contraband,  it  was  stowed  in 
every  corner  of  the  vessel — cocaine,  opium,  raw  leather, 
tobacco,  cognac,  and  quinine.  Prices  were  extravagant 
enough  in  Constantinople,  but  in  Russia  they  were 
colossal.     The  difference  in  the  price  of  drugs,  for  ex- 

250 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         ^251 

ample,  often  amounted  to  hundreds  per  cent.  The  de- 
mand for  cocaine  as  contraband  was  so  great  during  the 
week  before  we  actually  sailed  that  by  the  end  of  it  the 
chemists  of  Pera  and  Galata  would  sell  none  under  500 
dollars  a  kilo;  but  in  Odessa,  we  heard,  one  might  dis- 
pose of  it  without  difficulty  for  a  thousand  dollars  a  kilo. 
Even  White  and  I  became  infected  by  the  contraband 
craze  and,  with  Kulman  as  partner,  gambled  success- 
fully on  a  consignment  of  leather  and  so  covered  most 
of  our  escape  expenses. 

At  dusk,  when  we  left  the  wireless  cabin  and  paced 
the  shadowed  portion  of  the  deck  for  exercise,  we  often 
saw  a  rowing  boat  creeping  toward  whichever  side  of 
the  Batoum  happened  not  to  face  the  shore.  Somebody 
in  it  would  exchange  low  whistlings  with  somebody  on 
deck — the  somebody  often  being  TitofF.  When  the 
boat  had  been  made  fast  to  the  bottom  of  the  gangway, 
a  figure,  or  two  figures,  would  climb  to  the  deck  and  dis- 
appear. Sometimes  they  brought  and  left  a  package; 
sometimes  it  was  a  visitor  himself — or  herself — ^who 
did  not  depart  with  the  rowing  boat. 

Besides  the  mystery  traffic  from  shore  to  ship  there 
was  also  a  certain  amount  from  ship  to  shore.  For  this 
the  steward — a  Russian  Jew — ^was  responsible.  A 
Turkish  merchant  had  chartered  the  Batoum  for  the 
coming  voyage,  and  since  our  many  delays  in  sailing 
were  the  result  of  his  haggling  with  government  officials 
over  the  amount  of  baksheesh  to  be  paid  for  permission 
to  export,  he  undertook  to  feed  the  officers  and  crew  for 
as  long  as  they  remained  at  Constantinople.  Inciden- 
tally, he  unknowingly  fed  White  and  myself,  besides 
the  other  stowaways  and  the  escaped  Russian  soldiers. 


252         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

The  steward  ordered  more  provisions  than  were  needed; 
and  a  few  hours  after  the  deHvery  of  each  consignment 
a  boatload  would  be  sent  back  to  the  quay  and  carted 
to  the  bazaars.  TitofF,  who  organized  the  sale>  shared 
the  proceeds  with  the  steward. 

Titoff's  methods  of  graft  took  him  into  many  dubious 
by-paths,  notably  those  around  the  offices  of  a  Greek 
coal  dealer.  After  preliminary  plottings,  with  Viktor 
as  interpreter,  he  ordered  a  hundred  tons.  The  coal 
dealer  delivered  ninety,  the  bill  for  a  hundred  was  pre- 
sented to  the  Turkish  merchant,  and  TitofF  and  the 
Greek  split  the  value  of  the  missing  ten  tons.  It  was 
easy  enough  for  the  chief  engineer  to  make  good  the 
deficit  by  burning  ten  tons  more  on  paper  than  in  the 
furnaces. 

With  all  this  illicit  traffic  in  men  and  goods  there  were 
some  restless  half  hours  during  the  last  few  days  of  our 
stay  in  the  Bosphorus.  Trouble  was  caused  by  the 
bo'sun's  woman-thief,  whose  presence  among  us  the 
Pera  police  suspected.  Five  times  they  searched  for 
her.  The  bo'sun  detailed  a  man  to  watch  the  shore, 
and  whenever  a  police  launch  appeared  this  look-out 
would  blow  a  whistle.  All  the  stowaways  then  scurried 
to  their  various  hiding-places. 

White  and  I,  being  the  most  dangerous  cargo,  were 
given  the  safest — and  certainly  the  dirtiest — hiding-place 
of  all.  This  was  in  the  ballast-tanks,  at  the  very  bottom 
of  the  ship,  underneath  the  propeller  shaft.  The  entrance 
to  them  was  through  a  narrow  manhole,  covered  by  a 
cast-iron  lid,  about  twenty  yards  down  a  dark  passage 
leading  from  the  engine-room  to  the  propeller. 

The  alarm  having  been  given,  Feodor,  the  second 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         253 

engineer,  would  lead  us  along  the  passage  by  the  light 
of  a  taper,  remove  some  boards,  raise  the  lid,  and  help 
us  to  wriggle  into  the  black  cavity  below.  Our  feet 
would  be  covered  by  six  inches  of  bilge-water  while  we 
crouched  down,  so  as  to  leave  him  room  enough  to  re- 
place the  iron  cover  and  re-lay  the  wooden  boards  that 
hid  it.  Then,  one  at  a  time  and  with  our  knees  squelch- 
ing in  the  water,  we  crawled  from  tank  to  tank. 

Half-way  along  the  line  of  tanks  were  two  that  con- 
tained small  mattresses,  which  the  second  engineer  had 
placed  in  position  for  us.  After  the  first  day  they  were 
sodden  with  the  bilge-water;  but  at  any  rate  it  was  bet- 
ter to  sit  on  them  than  in  the  water  itself.  The  limited 
space,  however,  made  it  impossible  for  us  to  be  seated 
in  any  but  a  very  cramped  position,  with  hunched-up 
shoulders  rubbing  against  the  slime  that  coated  the 
sides  of  each  tank.  Standing  was  impossible,  and  lying 
down  meant  leaning  one's  head  on  the  wet  mattress 
and  soaking  one's  feet  in  the  drain  of  bilge  that  swished 
backward  and  forward  with  every  motion  of  the  ship. 

Complete  blackness  surrounded  us.  The  air  was 
dank  and  musty,  so  that  matches  sputtered  only  feebly 
when  struck,  and  the  light  from  a  taper  was  hardly 
strong  enough  to  chase  the  darkness  from  the  half  of 
each  small  tank. 

When,  after  each  search,  the  police  returned  to  their 
launch  we  would  hear  the  heavy  boots  of  the  second 
engineer  tramping  along  the  passage  overhead.  As  we 
listened  to  the  nerve-edging  noise  that  accompanied 
the  removal  of  the  boards  and  the  iron  Hd  we  crouched 
into  the  best-hidden  corners  of  our  respective  tanks, 
not  knowing  whether  a  friend  or  a  policeman  was  at  the 


254         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

entrance.  We  scarcely  breathed  until  there  came, 
booming  and  echoing  through  the  hollow  compart- 
ments, the  word  ^'Signorl" — the  second  engineer's 
password  denoting  that  all  was  clear,  and  that  we  might 
return  to  the  engine-room. 

The  twenty-second  of  August  was  the  final  date  fixed 
for  the  departure.  By  late  afternoon  of  the  twenty- 
first  all  the  Turkish  merchant's  cargo,  legitimate  and 
otherwise,  had  been  brought  from  the  quay  by  Hghters, 
and  thence  transferred  by  winches  to  the  Batoum's 
hatches.  The  export  officials  had  been  squared,  the  ship's 
papers  were  passed  and  stamped,  the  bunkers  were 
fully  loaded  with  inferior  coal.  All  on  board,  from  the 
captain  to  the  least-considered  stowaway,  were  content, 
although  nervous  of  what  might  happen  during  the 
next  twenty-four  hours. 

At  about  five  o'clock  we  received  a  welcome  visit 
from  Vladimir  Wilkowsky,  the  Polish  aviator  who  had 
acted  as  our  intermediary  from  Psamatia.  He  bribed 
his  guard  to  remain  in  Stamboul  while  he  crossed  the 
bridge  to  Galata,  and  hired  the  kaik  that  brought  him 
to  the  Batoum.  He  himself  intended  to  follow  us 
across  the  Black  Sea  by  escaping  on  the  next  steamer 
to  leave  Constantinople  for  Odessa.  Meanwhile,  we 
were  especially  glad  to  see  him,  for  he  brought  from 
Mr.  S.  the  fifteen  hundred  dollars  for  which  we  had 
waited  so  anxiously.  In  return  we  sent  improvised 
cheques  written  on  strips  of  foolscap  paper. 

We  now  had  enough  money  to  pay  TitofF's  exorbitant 
fee,  and  still  leave  funds  to  live  in  Odessa  for  some 
weeks.  Two  German  revolvers,  bought  for  us  in  the 
bazaar  by  Kulman,  added  to  the  feeling  of  security. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         255 

Wilkowsky  claimed  to  have  sent  on  board  the  food 
and  clothing  which  we  left  at  Psamatia,  and  he  was 
able  to  confirm  our  suspicions  that  TitofF  must  have 
stolen  it.  For  the  present,  however,  we  refrained  from 
tackling  the  chief  engineer,  wishing  to  avoid  a  scandal 
before  departure.  We  promised  ourselves  to  deal  with 
him  adequately  at  Odessa. 

That  evening  there  were  more  than  the  usual  number 
of  mysterious  visits  from  small  boats.  The  full  comple- 
ment of  stowaways  was  taken  aboard,  the  last  cases 
of  contraband  shipped.  Until  a  late  hour  the  engine- 
room  resounded  to  the  hammerings  of  Feodor  and  Josef, 
who  were  hiding  a  late  consignment  of  cocaine.  Our 
own  investment  in  raw  leather  was  in  Kulman^s  cabin. 

The  firemen  and  greasers  celebrated  their  farewell 
in  the  usual  manner.  By  nine  o'clock  several  were 
roaring  drunk.  One  of  them — the  Bolshevik  who  had 
told  of  the  drowning  of  Baltic  fleet  officers — staggered 
across  the  aft  deck  with  a  drawn  knife  in  his  hand, 
shouting  that  he  wanted  to  finish  off  the  third  engineer, 
who  had  insulted  him.  He  found  Josef  in  the  engine- 
room,  but  was  cowed  and  disarmed  when  the  engineer 
threatened  him  with  a  revolver.  He  let  himself  be  led 
away,  while  verbally  murdering  all  officers  in  general 
and  Josef  in  particular. 

At  6.30  in  the  morning  Josef,  the  third  engineer, 
roused  us  from  our  sleep  on  the  floor  of  his  cabin  and 
invited  us  to  the  ballast-tanks;  for  as  the  police  and 
customs  officers  would  be  on  board  most  of  the  time 
until  we  weighed  anchor,  we  must  remain  hidden  until 
the  Batoum  left  Turkish  waters. 

Since  we  expected  to  be  hidden  for  about  twelve 


256         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

hours,  we  took  with  us  a  loaf  of  bread,  some  dried  saus- 
age, and  a  bottle  of  water.  After  a  last  look,  through 
the  port-hole,  at  Seraglio  Point  and  the  domes  of  Stam- 
boul,  I  passed  below,  hoping  and  expecting  that  when  I 
next  looked  to  the  open  air  we  should  be  clear  of  Turkey. 

For  a  long  while  nothing  happened  to  take  our 
thoughts  from  the  cramped  space  and  the  foul  air  of  the 
tanks.  We  breakfasted  sparingly,  and  allowed  our- 
selves one  cigarette  apiece.  More  we  dared  not  smoke, 
because  of  the  effect  on  the  oppressive  atmosphere. 

Then,  at  about  ten  o'clock,  we  heard  from  above  a 
succession  of  three  thuds,  the  signal  to  all  stowaways  in 
the  region  of  the  engine-room  that  the  police  were  on 
board.  We  made  ourselves  as  comfortable  as  possible, 
and  took  minute  care  to  make  no  sound. 

We  waited  in  frantic  impatience  for  the  noises  from  the 
engine-room  that  would  denote  a  getting-up  of  steam. 
At  half-past  eleven  there  began  a  continuous,  rhythmic 
spurting,  which  we  took  to  be  the  sound  of  the  engines 
in  action.  Soon  afterward  a  grinding  and  scraping 
from  the  deck  convinced  us  that  the  anchor  was  being 
raised. 

"Put  it  there,  old  man,"  said  White,  thrusting  his 
hand  through  the  hole  that  linked  our  respective  tanks. 
** We're  leaving  Turkey  at  last!" 

But  not  yet  were  we  leaving  Turkey.  The  noise  from 
the  engine-room  was  merely  that  of  a  pump  preparing 
the  pressure.  After  three-quarters  of  an  hour  it  quiet- 
ed as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun,  and  we  realized  that 
the  Batoum  was  still  moored  in  the  Bosphorus,  between 
Seraglio  Point  and  the  Sultan's  palace  of  Dolma 
Bagtche. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         257 

And  then,  soon  after  noon,  came  the  real  music  for 
which  we  had  waited  so  anxiously.  The  telegraph  from 
the  bridge  tinkled,  a  fuller  and  more  throaty  rhythm 
came  from  the  engine-room,  loud  grinding  and  rattling 
from  the  deck  testified  that  the  anchor  had  parted 
company  with  the  bottom  of  the  Bosphorus.  A  few 
minutes  later  we  felt  the  ship  swinging  round,  and  a 
swishing  and  rushing  of  water  told  us  that  this  time  we 
really  were  away.     In  silence  we  shook  hands  again. 

For  long  hours  we  remained  in  the  slimy  tanks, 
crouched  on  the  sodden  mattresses.  But  it  was  no 
longer  purgatory.  The  swish-swish  of  the  screw  chased 
away  all  sensation  of  discomfort,  and  there  remained 
only  the  realization  that  we  had  left  Constantinople  and 
soon  would  have  left  Turkey.  My  old  habit  of  sub- 
consciously fitting  metre  and  rhymes  to  mechanical 
rhythm,  to  which  I  had  succumbed  many  times  when 
seated  behind  aeroplane  motors,  began  to  assert  itself 
as  we  sat  in  the  darkness  and  listened  to  the  penetrating 
throb-throb  from  the  engine-room  above  us.  Incon- 
gruously enough  the  unbidden  lines  that  continued  to 
pass  maddeningly  through  my  mind,  in  time  with  the 
steady  rise  and  fall  of  the  piston,  were  those  of  a  G.  K, 
Chesterton  ballad: 


If  I  had  been  a  heathen 

rd  have  kissed  Naera's  curls. 

And  filled  my  life  with  love  affairs. 

My  house  with  dancing  girls. 

But  Higgins  is  a  heathen; 

And  to  meetings  he  is  forced 

Where  his  aunts,  who  are  not  married. 

Demand  to  be  divorced. 


258         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

These  words  held  sway  for  five  hours  of  insistent, 
monotonous  chugging.  They  were  succeeded  by  an 
extract  from  the  Prodigal  Son : 

Here  come  I  to  my  own  again. 
Fed,  forgiven  and  known  again. 
Claimed  by  bone  of  my  bone  again. 
And  sib  to  flesh  of  my  flesh. 
The  fatted  calf  is  dressed  for  me; 
But  the  husks  have  greater  zest  for  me — 
I  think  my  pigs  will  be  best  for  me, 
So  I'm  off"  to  the  styes  afresh. 

By  early  evening,  we  had  calculated,  the  Batoum 
should  be  leaving  Turkish  territorial  waters  and  enter- 
ing the  Black  Sea.  Just  before  six  there  came  the 
shock  of  a  bitter  disappointment.  The  captain's  tele- 
graph clanged,  the  engines  subdued  to  dead  slow,  the 
vessel  swung  round  into  the  tide  and  seemed  to  remain 
almost  stationary  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  We  had 
expected  a  last  search  by  the  Turkish  customs  author- 
ities at  the  outlet  of  the  Bosphorus  and  surmised  that 
this  was  the  reason  for  the  slackened  speed.  But  a  re- 
petition of  the  whirring  and  clanking  on  deck,  followed 
by  a  loud  splash,  showed  that  the  anchor  was  in  action 
again,  and  that  something  more  important  than  a  mere 
search  was  on  hand.  For  two  hours  longer  we  remained 
in  the  blackness,  unenhghtened  and  very  anxious.  Then, 
after  the  usual  removal  of  the  boards  and  the  lid,  there 
floated  through  the  tanks  a  low-voiced  ''Signor!" 

Feodor,  candle  in  hand,  was  waiting  for  us.  He 
whispered  a  warning  to  make  as  little  noise  as  possible, 
because  two  Turkish  officials  were  on  board.     Having 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         259 

reconnoitred  to  make  sure  that  the  way  to  Josefs  cabin 
was  clear,  he  led  us  there.  The  delay,  it  appeared,  was 
because  the  Turkish  merchant  had  left  some  clearance 
papers  at  Constantinople.  He  had  gone  for  the  capital 
by  automobile,  and  meanwhile  two  of  the  Customs 
Police  would  remain  on  the  Batoum.  The  merchant 
was  expected  to  return  with  the  missing  document  next 
morning,  when  permission  to  leave  would  be  given. 

We  slept  in  the  cabin,  and  at  dawn  descended  once 
more  to  the  ship's  bowels.  We  spent  five  more  hours 
of  purgatory  in  the  ballast-tanks.  The  Batoum  re- 
mained motionless  during  three  of  them,  but  the  last 
two  were  enlivened  by  the  swish-swish  of  displaced 
water  as  it  passed  the  flanks  of  the  vessel.  Finally  we 
heard  for  the  last  time  the  blessed  signal ''  Signorl** 

**Fineesh  Turkey,**  said  Feodor,  as  he  smiled  and 
helped  us  through  the  manhole.  Gone  was  the  Bos- 
phorus,  and  in  its  place  we  saw  the  leaden  waters  ofthe 
Black  Sea.  From  the  port-hole  of  Josefs  cabin  we 
could  distinguish  many  miles  west  of  us  the  coastline 
of  the  country  in  which  White  had  spent  three  years 
ofthe  most  dreadful  captivity. 

Feodor  soon  left  us,  for  he  had  to  bring  other  stowa- 
ways into  the  hght  of  day.  From  every  concealed 
cranny  of  the  vessel  men  and  women,  almost  as  light- 
hearted  as  ourselves  at  deliverance  from  the  Turks, 
were  coming  into  the  open. 

One  of  the  stowaways,  a  passportless  woman  whom 
the  aged  captain  was  taking  with  him  to  Odessa,  did 
not  rejoice  for  some  time.  As  hiding-place  for  her  the 
ancient  had  chosen  a  deep  locker  in  his  chart  room  on  the 
bridge.    There  she  had  remained  for  the  past  two  days. 


26o         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Now  Katrina,  the  kitchen  wench,  knew  nothing  of  the 
captain's  lady.  That  morning,  not  wishing  to  send 
him  back  to  the  bunkers,  where  he  had  spent  the  pre- 
vious day,  she  thought  of  the  locker  as  a  temporary  home 
for  her  own  particular  stowaway — a  Turkish  deserter 
with  coal-blackened  face,  untrimmed  beard,  and  de- 
cidedly odorous  clothes.  She  dumped  the  Turk  inside 
the  locker,  fastened  the  lid,  and  ran  back  to  the  kitchen. 

The  Turkish  deserter  landed  with  some  violence  on 
the  captain's  lady,  and  both  received  a  bad  fright  as 
they  clutched  at  each  other  in  the  darkness.  Yet  the 
lid  could  not  be  removed  from  the  inside,  and  the  shouts 
were  unheard  outside  the  little  room.  The  air  in  the 
unventilated  locker  grew  ever  more  stuffy  and  velvety 
as  the  two  people  continued  to  breathe  it.  Finally  the 
woman  fainted.  The  Turk,  tired  out  after  a  long  spell 
of  cramped  wakefulness  in  the  bunkers  and  the  kitchen, 
composed  himself  philosophically  and  went  to  sleep. 

When  the  Batoum  was  beyond  the  Bosphorus  and  all 
danger  of  a  search  the  captain  opened  the  locker  to  re- 
lease his  friend.  He  inserted  an  arm,  and  jumped  with 
fright  when,  instead  of  a  female,  he  produced  a  coal- 
blackened  man.  The  woman  revived  when  taken  into 
the  fresh  air,  but  I  should  imagine  that  never  again  will 
she  become  a  stowaway. 

TitofF,  fearing  that  some  informer  among  the  pas- 
sengers might  notice  us,  still  kept  White  and  myself 
under  cover  all  day,  until  we  took  our  usual  exercise  on 
deck  each  evening.  The  other  stowaways  were  ming- 
ling with  legitimate  passengers,  whose  bedding  was 
spread  over  the  hatches. 

I   remember  in  particular   a  vivid-looking,   much- 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         261 

jewelled  Jewess,  who  was  minus  money  and  passport.  I 
found  her  exchanging  violent  words  with  two  firemen, 
who  were  levying  blackmail,  using  the  Austrian  port 
authorities  at  Odessa  as  bogey-men.  When,  with  tears 
and  protests,  she  had  fulfilled  their  demands,  two  other 
ruffians  from  among  the  crew  took  their  place  and  de- 
manded money,  or  in  default  jewels. 

All  the  stowaways,  in  fact,  except  ourselves,  were 
blackmailed  in  this  fashion.  The  woman  thief  was 
victimized  less  universally  than  the  others  because  she 
was  known  to  be  the  bo'sun's  especial  graft.  As  for  us, 
we  were  under  the  protection  of  the  ship's  officers,  and, 
more  important  still,  we  carried  revolvers.  In  any 
case,  Bolshevik  Bill  the  Greaser  was  our  good  friend 
and  a  power  among  the  crew. 

On  the  second  evening  at  sea  the  firemen  stole  a  case 
of  drak  from  the  cargo,  drank  themselves  amok,  and 
told  Josef  they  were  far  too  busy  over  private  concerns 
to  trouble  about  stoking  the  furnaces.  The  private 
concerns  were  mostly  women  from  among  the  stowa- 
ways and  poorer  passengers. 

The  fires  sank  lower  and  lower,  the  engine-power 
dwindled,  the  propeller  revolved  more  and  more  slowly. 
Finally  we  came  to  almost  a  dead  halt  in  the  middle  of 
the  Black  Sea.  Throughout  that  night  we  crawled 
forward  with  a  minimum  number  of  revolutions;  and 
even  this  small  progress  was  only  because  the  ship's 
officers  took  turns  in  the  furnace-room  to  act  as  stokers. 
Next  morning  the  sobered  firemen  graciously  agreed 
to  let  bygones  be  bygones,  and  resumed  work. 

The  rest  of  that  nightmare  voyage  included  only  one 
incident  worth  recording.    On  the  morning  of  the  fourth 


262         EASTERN  NIGHTS—AND  FLIGHTS 

day,  when  we  should  have  been  within  sight  of  land, 
the  horizon  in  every  direction  was  blank.  The  Turkish 
merchant  who  had  chartered  the  Batoum  was  impatient 
to  reach  Odessa,  and  asked  the  captain  for  our  position. 
The  ancient  tugged  at  his  white  beard,  and  said  he 
was  not  quite  sure,  but  would  take  soundings.  These 
revealed  shallow  water,  showing,  according  to  the 
chart,  that  the  ship  must  be  some  distance  off  her 
course. 

The  dodderer  was  astonished,  and  called  the  first 
mate  into  consultation.  Belaefs  calculations  with 
sextant  and  compass  proved  us  to  be  heading  several 
degrees  too  far  east,  so  that  the  then  line  of  sailing  would 
have  taken  us  nearer  Sevastopol  than  Odessa.  There- 
upon the  captain  handed  over  the  ship's  direction  to  the 
first  mate.  We  edged  northward,  and  sighted  Odessa 
at  noon  of  the  next  day. 

The  city,  with  its  pleasant  terraces  round  the  hills 
that  slope  to  the  foot  of  the  wide-curved  bay,  and  its 
half- Western,  half-Byzantine  towers  and  domes  gleam- 
ing yellow-gold  in  the  sunlight,  looked  inviting  enough. 
But  for  us  it  represented  a  gamble  in  the  unknown. 
Odessa  was  in  enemy  occupation,  and  might  be  more 
inhospitable  even  than  Constantinople.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  should  no  longer  be  on  the  police  list 
of  wanteds,  as  in  Turkey,  and  it  would  be  easier  to  pass 
muster  among  Russians  than  among  dark-skinned 
Levantines. 

On  the  whole,  we  were  optimistic.  From  Odessa  a 
man  with  friends  and  money  might  make  his  way  to 
Siberia,  where  were  some  Allied  detachments;  and  if, 
as  the  latest  news  indicated,  Bulgaria  was  about  to  be 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  263 

emptied  of  Austro-German  forces,  Odessa  would  be  a 
good  jumping-ofF  point  for  Sofia. 

Meanwhile,  our  immediate  concern  was  to  get  ashore 
without  meeting  the  dock  officials.  Kulman  and  Josef 
promised  to  escort  us,  and  thus  lend  the  protection  of 
their  uniforms.  We  ourselves  discarded  seamen's 
clothes  for  the  mufti  worn  when  we  escaped  from  the 
Turkish  guards.  White  still  had  no  lounge  coat,  and 
although  it  was  a  hot  day  of  August  had  to  put  on  his 
faded  old  overcoat.  For  the  rest,  the  luggage  we  were 
bringing  to  Russia — each  of  us  possessed  a  toothbrush, 
some  cartridges,  a  revolver,  a  comb,  and  a  razor,  a  spare 
shirt>  a  spare  collar,  and  two  handkerchiefs — could  be 
wrapped  in  two  sheets  of  newspaper. 

Before  we  left  there  was  a  dramatic  ceremony  when  we 
paid  for  our  unauthorized  passage,  and  incidentally  got 
even  with  Michael  Ivanovitch  TitofF.  He  had  reck- 
oned on  taking  the  money  himself  and  dividing  it  as  he 
pleased.  We,  knowing  that  TitofFcould  best  be  punished 
by  hitting  at  his  avarice,  explained  to  Kulman,  Josef, 
and  Feodor  that  as  they  had  done  more  for  us  than  the 
chief  engineer,  we  wanted  them  to  receive  a  share  corre- 
sponding to  their  risks  and  services,  and  proposed  to 
hand  all  the  money  to  them  for  distribution.  From 
TitoflF*s  share  we  would  deduct  the  value  of  what  he  had 
stolen  from  us,  and  also  whatever  we  thought  excessive 
in  his  charges  for  food. 

Each  of  the  trio  had  his  own  grievances  against  TitofF, 
and  all  were  delighted  with  the  opportunity  of  making 
money  at  his  expense.  We  prepared  a  balance  sheet, 
and  invited  Titoff  into  Josefs  cabin. 

Josef,  as  TitofF's  subordinate,  had  been  scared  of 


264         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

offending  him.  Four  glasses  of  neat  vodka,  however, 
gave  him  courage,  and  when  the  chief  engineer  entered 
the  cabin  he  was  the  most  aggressive  of  us  all. 

"Michael  Ivanovitch,"  he  said,  glaring  at  Titoff 
with  bloodshot  eyes,  "we  are  no  longer  at  Constanti- 
nople, and  our  friends  here  insist  on  a  just  distribution 
of  their  money.  This  '* — handing  him  the  balance  sheet 
and  a  list  of  his  own — "is  how  it  will  be  divided." 

The  chief  rogue  glared  his  indignation  as  White 
handed  a  handful  of  banknotes  to  Josef,  and  voiced  it 
when  he  received  the  balance  sheet.  He  stood  up  and 
declaimed  against  the  deductions,  but  soon  subsided  in 
face  of  the  row  of  unfriendly  faces,  the  grins,  and  the 
revolvers  which  White  and  I  kept  well  in  evidence. 

"There  is  nothing  more  to  be  settled,"  said  White. 
"Here  we  are  among  friends.     Now  leave  us." 

And  Titoff  went.  At  the  door  he  turned  and  said  to 
Josef  with  evil  meaning  in  his  voice:  "I  shall  have  busi- 
ness with  you  later."  Josef  laughed,  and  with  a  shaky 
hand  poured  himself  out  another  glass  of  vodka. 

The  last  we  saw  of  Michael  Ivanovitch  Titoff  was 
his  yellow  face  leaning  over  the  side  of  the  ship  when, 
with  Kulman  and  Josef,  we  rowed  toward  the  docks. 
They  were  taking  us  on  shore  before  the  customs  officers 
boarded  the  Batoum.  The  other  stowaways,  who  were 
mingling  with  the  legitimate  passengers  on  the  deck, 
were  to  come  later. 

The  harbour  was  chock-full  of  forlorn-looking  craft, 
which  had  evidently  lain  idle  for  a  long  while.  We 
dodged  around  and  about  several  of  them,  so  as  not  to 
give  the  appearance  of  coming  from  the  Batoum,  and 
then  made  for  the  nearest  quay. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         265 

On  it  was  an  Austrian  officer.  When  we  were  some 
fifty  yards  distant  he  looked  at  us  through  field-glasses, 
and  proceeded  to  detail  a  group  of  soldiers  to  various 
points  on  the  quay,  evidently  with  the  object  of  stopping 
and  questioning  us. 

Kulman,  who  was  at  the  tiller,  gave  an  order  to  the 
sailor  at  the  oars.  We  swung  round  a  bend  of  the  shore, 
and  lost  sight  of  the  Austrians.  Close  ahead  was  an- 
other landing-stage.  We  moored  beside  it.  Without 
waiting  a  second,  but  also  without  showing  haste,  we 
stepped  from  the  boat  and  cHmbed  the  steps — Kulman 
and  I  first,  and  then  Josef  and  White. 

Two  Austrian  sentries  and  some  Russian  officials 
stood  at  the  top  of  the  steps.  They  looked  hard  at  us, 
but,  satisfied  by  the  uniforms  of  Kulman  and  Josef, 
merely  nodded  a  greeting  as  we  passed  toward  the 
dock  gates  and  comparative  freedom. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A  RUSSIAN   INTERLUDE 

Odessa,  like  the  rest  of  the  Ukraine,  had  exchanged 
Bolshevism  for  Austro-German  domination  and  confis- 
cation. Already,  when  we  passed  through  the  docks,  it 
was  easy  to  see  who  were  the  masters.  Austrian  cus- 
toms officers  controlled  the  quays;  Austrian  and  Ger- 
man soldiers  guarded  the  storehouses;  Austrian  sentries 
stood  at  the  dock  gates  and  sometimes  demanded  to 
see  civihans'  passports.  Had  we  not  been  vouched  for 
by  the  uniforms  of  the  Batoum*s  third  engineer  and 
third  mate,  the  sentries  might  well  have  stopped  White 
and  me. 

Once  outside  the  gates  we  hired  a  cab,  and  drove  to 
an  address  given  us  by  Mr.  S. — that  of  the  sister  and  the 
mother  of  a  Russian  professor  at  Robert  College,  Con- 
stantinople. Arrived  there,  we  left  Josef  and  Kulman, 
with  very  sincere  expressions  of  goodwill. 

The  professor's  sister  received  us  cordially  but 
calmly,  as  if  it  were  an  everyday  event  for  two  down- 
at-heel  British  officers  to  drop  on  her  from  the  skies 
with  a  letter  of  introduction  but  without  the  least 
warning. 

"Why,  only  three  days  ago,"  she  related,  **two  offi- 
cers of  the  Russian  Imperial  Army  arrived  here  under 
like  circumstances.     They  made  their  way  from  Petro- 

266 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  267 

grad,  through  the  Soviet  territory.  They  now  occupy 
the  room  below  ours. 

Once  again  Providence  seemed  to  have  played  into 
our  hands;  for  when  these  ex-officers  were  asked  how 
best  we  could  live  in  the  German-occupied  city,  they 
produced  the  two  false  passports  by  means  of  which 
they  had  travelled  through  Bolshevist  Russia.  They 
now  lived  in  the  Ukraine  under  their  own  names  and 
with  their  own  identity  papers;  and  the  false  passports, 
no  longer  necessary  to  them,  they  handed  to  White  and 
me. 

Without  passports  we  could  scarcely  have  found 
lodging  or  rations,  for  every  non-Ukrainian  in  Odessa 
had  to  register  with  the  Austrian  authorities.  Tom 
White,  therefore,  became  Serge  Feodorovitch  DavidofF, 
originally  from  Turkestan,  and  I  became  Evgeni  Nes- 
torovitch  Genko,  a  Lett  from  Riga.  This  origin  suited 
me  very  well;  for  the  Letts,  although  former  subjects 
of  Imperial  Russia,  can  mostly  speak  the  German  pa- 
tois of  the  Baltic  Provinces.  My  passport  made  me  a 
young  bachelor,  but  White's  allotted  him  a  missing  wife 
named  Anastasia,  aged  nineteen. 

There  were  still  in  Odessa  a  few  British  subjects  who 
had  remained  through  the  dreadful  days  of  the  Bol- 
shevist occupation  and  the  more  peaceful  Austro-Ger- 
man  regime.  It  happened  that  the  professor's  sister 
knew  one  of  them,  a  leather  manufacturer  named  Hat- 
ton.  In  his  house  we  found  refuge  until  other  arrange- 
ments could  be  made.  Like  most  people  in  Odessa,  he 
showed  us  every  kindness  in  his  power,  as  did  his  Rus- 
sian wife  and  her  relations.  It  was,  however,  unwise  to 
remain  for  long  with  an  Englishman,  for  he  himself 


268  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

would  have  been  imprisoned  if  the  Austrians  discovered 
that  he  was  harbouring  two  British  officers. 

The  professor's  sister  played  providence  yet  again, 
and  produced  another  invaluable  friend — one  Vladimir 
Franzovitch  B.,  a  hard-up  lieutenant  in  the  Ukrainian 
artillery.  Vladimir  Franzovitch  lived  in  two  small 
rooms.  The  larger  one  he  shared  with  us,  there  being 
just  room  enough  for  three  camp  beds  placed  side  by 
side  and  touching  each  other.  The  second  room  was 
occupied  by  his  mistress. 

Obviously  the  situation  had  its  drawbacks.  It  also 
had  its  advantages,  as  the  rooms  were  in  one  of  the  city's 
poorest  quarters.  The  neighbours,  therefore,  included 
no  enemy  soldiers,  for  the  Germans  and  Austrians  had 
naturally  spread  themselves  over  the  more  comfortable 
districts. 

The  dvormk  was  an  old  sergeant  of  the  Imperial  Guard, 
with  a  bitter  hatred  of  Bolshevism  and  all  its  works. 
The  tale  which  Vladimir  Franzovitch  told  of  us — ^that 
we  were  English  civilians  escaped  from  Moscow — ^was 
in  itself  a  guarantee  that  he  would  befriend  us.  He 
took  our  false  passports  to  the  food  commissioners,  and 
thus  obtained  bread  and  sugar  rations  for  Serge  Feo- 
dorovitch  DavidofF  and  Evgeni  Nestorovitch  Genko. 

Our  principal  interest  was  now  in  the  news  from  Bul- 
garia, for  on  it  hinged  our  future  movements.  We 
visited  Hatton  each  day  to  obtain  translations  from  the 
local  press.  These  I  supplemented  from  the  two-day- 
old  newspapers  of  Lemberg  and  Vienna,  bought  at  the 
kiosk. 

The  Bulgarian  armistice  was  an  accomplished  fact, 
but  the  German  troops  had  been  given  a  month  to  leave 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         269 

Bulgaria.  Our  problem  was  whether  to  remain  in 
Odessa  until  the  end  of  this  month  and  then  try  to  make 
for  Bulgaria,  or  to  leave  for  Siberia  at  once. 

Wilkowsky  all  but  tipped  the  scales  in  favour  of  Si- 
beria. He  arrived  suddenly  from  Constantinople,  hav- 
ing hidden  on  a  steamer  that  weighed  anchor  a  few  days 
after  the  Batoum's  departure.  From  being  a  penniless 
prisoner,  without  even  the  means  of  corresponding  with 
his  family,  he  was  now  prosperous  and  comfortable;  for 
his  father  was  a  wealthy  lawyer  living  in  Odessa,  and 
his  uncle  Minister  of  Justice  in  Skoropadsky's  Ukrain- 
ian Cabinet. 

Among  his  friends  was  the  local  commissary  of  General 
Denikin,  whose  volunteer  army,  composed  of  Kuban 
Cossacks  and  ex-officers  of  the  Imperial  Army,  was 
preparing  to  advance  against  the  Bolshevist  forces  in 
the  Caucasus.  Every  few  days  the  commissary  sent  a 
party  of  ex-officers,  by  way  of  Novorosisk,  to  the  volun- 
teer Army  Headquarters  at  Ekaterinodar.  General 
Denikin  was  hoping  for  aid  from  the  Allies;  so  that  the 
commissary  was  delighted  at  the  chance  of  enlisting 
two  British  aviators.  His  offer  was  that  we  should  fly 
with  Denikin's  army  for  a  few  weeks  and  help  to  organize 
the  Flying  Corps,  after  which  we  could  proceed  by  aero- 
plane to  some  Allied  detachment  in  Siberia. 

The  adventure  seemed  attractive,  and  we  hesitated 
over  it.  But  illness  took  the  decision  from  our  hands. 
I  was  laid  low  by  yellow  jaundice,  and  unable  to  travel 
with  the  next  party  that  left  for  Novorosisk.  Weak- 
ened as  I  was  by  various  forms  of  hardship,  several  days 
passed  before  I  recovered,  under  the  kind-hearted  minis- 
trations of  Elena  Stepanovna,  Hatton's  Russian  wife. 


Vjo         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

The  aftermath  of  jaundice  once  brought  us  what  we 
least  desired — conspicuousness.  In  hot  weather  the 
Russians  living  around  the  Black  Sea  bathe  from  the 
beach  in  the  altogether.  There,  men's  bathing  cos- 
tumes attract  almost  as  much  attention  as  would  a  lack 
of  them  at  Brighton  or  Atlantic  City.  Hatton,  White, 
and  I  formed  a  bathing  party  soon  after  I  felt  better. 
Until  we  were  crossing  the  beach  below  the  pubHc  gar- 
dens none  of  us  realized  that  the  colour  of  my  skin  was 
still  a  warm  yellow.  The  spectacle  of  a  yellow  man  in 
all  his  nakedness  drew  many  sightseers  from  the  gar- 
dens, including  Austrian  soldiers.  I  dressed  under 
cover  of  a  rock,  and  lost  no  time  in  leaving  the  gardens. 

No  sooner  was  I  free  from  jaundice  than  fate  sent 
another  setback.  White  and  I  succumbed  to  the  plague 
of  influenza  which  swept  across  Europe  from  west  to 
east,  and  which  in  one  week  killed  forty  thousand  in- 
habitants of  Odessa.  For  three  days  we  lay  in  Vladi- 
mir Franzovitch's  little  room,  weak,  feverish,  miserable, 
and  at  times  light-headed,  while  his  mistress  fed  us 
with  milk  and  heaped  every  kind  of  clothing  over  us 
for  warmth. 

Recovery  was  hastened  by  the  best  possible  tonic — 
news  that  the  way  to  Varna,  on  the  Bulgarian  coast, 
was  open  to  us.  Thanks  were  due  to  several  good 
friends  for  this  means  to  freedom.  Hatton  had  intro- 
duced us  to  a  cosmopolitan  Britisher  named  Waite,  who 
enHsted  the  help  of  Louis  Demy,  a  Russian  sea-captain. 
Demy  spoke  of  us  to  Commodore  Wolkenau,  the 
Ukrainian  ofiicer  who,  under  the  Austrians,  controlled  the 
shipping  at  Odessa.  Wolkenau,  having  been  an  officer 
of  the  Russian  Imperial  Navy,  was  a  good  friend  of  the 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         271 

British.  Moreover,  the  daily  bulletins  made  it  appar- 
ent that  the  AUies  were  winning  the  war,  so  that  he  was 
glad  of  an  opportunity  to  prove  his  sympathies  by  help- 
ing British  officers.  He  arranged  for  our  passage  on  a 
Red  Cross  ship  which  was  to  repatriate  Russian  pris- 
oners from  Austria,  now  waiting  at  Varna. 

Meantime,  there  was  an  interval  of  ten  days'  waiting 
before  the  boat  would  sail.  These  we  passed  in  moving 
about  the  city,  in  consorting  with  Ukrainian  officers  and 
officials  introduced  by  Wilkowsky,  and  in  collecting  in- 
formation likely  to  be  of  use  to  the  British  Intelligence 
Department. 

Our  usual  companion  was  one  Pat  OTlaherty,  an 
Irishman  on  the  staff  of  the  Eastern  Telegraph  Com- 
pany, who  had  stayed  in  Odessa  during  the  Bolshevist 
and  Austro-German  occupations.  Entering  a  cafe  with 
OTlaherty  was  like  a  blindfold  draw  in  a  sweepstake 
of  identities.  Always  he  met  friends;  but  until  the 
moment  of  introduction  neither  we  nor  he  knew  how  or 
as  what  we  were  to  be  presented.  To  one  man  we  were 
merchants  from  Nikolaieff;  to  another,  motor-car  agents 
from  Moscow;  to  a  third  oil  experts  returned  from 
Baku. 

"Signor  Califatti,"  said  OTlaherty  on  one  occasion, 
presenting  me  to  a  wealthy  Jewish  speculator. 

**When  he  was  at  Nijni  Novgorod  Fair,"  he  con- 
tinued in  all  seriousness,  "SignorCalifatti  bought  a  beau- 
tiful fur  overcoat.  He  now  wants  to  sell  it.  Perhaps 
you  would  like  to  buy  it." 

The  Jew  offered  a  thousand  roubles  for  the  mythical 
overcoat,  provided  it  conformed  to  the  Irishman's 
declaration  that  it  was  of  first-class  astrakhan,  in  four 


272         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHfTS 

skins;  while  White  and  I  remained  speechless  with  as- 
tonishment, embarrassment,  and  the  desire  to  grin. 

In  those  days  the  Bolsheviki  of  Odessa,  after  months 
of  suppression  by  the  German  Military  Command,  were 
beginning  to  raise  their  heads  again.  There  was  much 
talk  of  a  withdrawal  of  German  and  Austrian  troops 
from  the  Ukraine,  to  reinforce  the  French  and  Italian 
fronts.  The  Bolsheviki  were  ready,  if  this  happened, 
to  rise  up  and  capture  the  city. 

The  possession  of  arms  by  civilians  was  strictly  for- 
bidden, and  any  man  found  in  the  streets  with  a  revolver 
was  liable  to  be  shot  ofFhand  by  Austrian  soldiers  or 
Ukrainian  gendarmes.  But  the  Bolsheviki  laughed  at 
the  many  proclamations  anent  the  handing  over  of  fire- 
arms. They  hid  rifles,  revolvers,  and  ammunition  in 
cellars  and  attics,  or  buried  them  in  the  ground. 

Many  of  our  neighbours  in  the  working-class  quarter 
were  Bolsheviki.  Often  they  scowled  at  and  threat- 
ened Vladimir  Franzovitch,  as  he  passed  them  in  his 
uniform  of  a  Heutenant  of  the  Ukrainian  artillery;  and 
it  was  evident  that  when  the  Austrians  withdrew  our 
room  would  be  rather  more  dangerous  as  a  home  than 
a  powder  factory  threatened  by  fire. 

The  consul  of  Soviet  Russia  was  preparing  lists  of 
men  willing  to  serve  in  the  corps  of  Red  Guards  that  had 
been  planned,  and  was  spending  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  roubles  in  propaganda.  An  immediate  rising  was 
threatened;  whereupon  Austrian  and  Ukrainian  mil- 
itary police  surrounded  the  consulate,  captured  the 
lists,  and  arrested  and  imprisoned  the  consul  and  two 
hundred  Bolsheviki  who  had  given  their  names  as  pros- 
pective Red  Guards.     Sixty  of  them  were  shot. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         273 

Even  that  lesson  failed  to  frighten  the  half-starved 
men  who  lurked  in  the  poorer  quarters.  Often,  in  the 
evening,  they  haunted  the  streets  in  small  gangs  that 
held  up  passers-by  and  stripped  them  of  their  pocket- 
books  and  watches,  and  sometimes  of  their  clothes. 

The  ugliest  aspect  of  an  ugly  situation  was  that  many 
soldiers  of  the  Austrian  forces,  particularly  the  Mag- 
yars and  the  Poles,  sympathized  with  the  Bolsheviki,  and 
were  ready  to  join  them,  exchanging  uniform  for  looted 
civilian  suits  if  the  troops  were  withdrawn.  The  sud- 
den realization  that  Austria  was  beaten,  coupled  with 
hatred  of  Austrian  Imperialism,  went  to  their  heads 
like  new  wine.  They  foresaw  an  era  in  which  the  work- 
ing man  and  the  private  soldier  would  grab  whatever 
they  wanted.  Bands  of  Hungarian  privates  proved 
their  belief  in  this  millennium  by  sacking  the  warehouses 
in  the  docks  under  cover  of  night. 

Odessa  was  overfull  of  members  of  the  bourgeoisie 
who  had  flocked  to  what  they  regarded  as  the  last  refuge 
against  Bolshevism  in  European  Russia.  Refugees 
had  swelled  the  population  from  six  hundred  thousand 
to  a  million  and  a  half.  The  middle  classes — profes- 
sional men,  merchants,  traders,  and  speculators — knew 
they  were  living  on  the  edge  of  a  volcano,  and  tried  to 
drown  the  knowledge  in  reckless  revelry.  Each  even- 
ing parties  costing  thousands  of  roubles  were  given  in 
the  restaurants.  Wine  and  vodka,  as  aids  to  forget- 
fulness  of  the  fear  that  hovered  over  every  feast,  were 
well  worth  their  sixty  roubles  a  bottle. 

Their  orgy  of  speculation  in  inflated  prices  and  their 
mock  merriment  left  the  bourgeoisie  neither  time  nor 
energy  to  take  actioti  against  the  horrors  that  threat- 


274         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

ened  them.  In  general  they  adopted  a  pose  of  fatalistic 
apathy,  and  tried  hard  to  soothe  themselves  into  the 
belief  that  the  Allies  would  save  them,  since  they  would 
not  save  themselves.  For  the  rest  they  laughed  hysteric- 
ally, speculated  unceasingly,  and  talked  charmingly  and 
interminably. 

The  only  serious  preparation  against  a  renewal  of  the 
Red  Terror  in  Odessa  was  made  by  ex-officers,  who 
banded  themselves  into  a  semi-official  corps.  But 
they  possessed  few  arms  and  less  ammunition.  Even 
the  official  forces  of  the  Ukraine  could  place  only  a 
dozen  small-calibre  guns  round  Odessa,  and  were  obliged 
to  be  content  with  one  rifle  between  two  or  three  men. 
In  any  case,  the  loyalty  of  the  private  soldiers  in  the 
small  Ukrainian  army  was  a  doubtful  quantity,  and 
unlikely  to  be  proof  against  the  temptations  of  rich  loot 
and  rapine. 

Small  arms  were  worth  their  weight  in  silver.  Vladi- 
mir Franzovitch,  discovering  that  White  and  1  pos- 
sessed German  revolvers,  implored  us  to  sell  them  to 
him  before  we  left.  He  offered  thirty  pounds  apiece 
for  them.  In  Constantinople  we  had  bought  them  for 
eight  pounds  each,  and  in  England  they  would  have 
cost  less  than  forty  shillings. 

Vladimir  Franzovitch  was  weighed  down  by  the  most 
extreme  pessimism  over  the  future  of  Russia. 

**We  cannot  be  a  nation  again  for  a  hundred  years," 
he  said.  "The  people  are  either  revelling  in  brute- 
instinct,  drunk  with  the  strong  wine  of  a  spurious  and 
half-understood  idealism,  or  are  dying  in  their  thou- 
sands of  starvation.  Most  of  the  strong  men  who  might 
have  helped  to  save  the  country  have  been  killed,  and 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         275 

the  bourgeoisie  folds  its  arms  and  awaits  destruction  in 
sheep-like  inaction.'* 

He  saw  but  one  hope — the  Cossacks  and  officers  who 
were  rallying,  through  incredible  hardships,  to  Deni- 
kin's  army  in  the  Caucasus;  and  Denikin  could  make  no 
important  move  unless  the  Allies  backed  him  with  arms 
and  munitions.  Until  this  happened  his  small  army 
would  be  but  an  oasis  in  the  desert  of  hopelessness. 

We  were  present  at  several  gatherings  of  officers,  in 
Vladimir  Franzovitch's  room.  Over  bread  and  salted 
fish,  washed  down  by  tea,  they  discussed  the  black 
past  and  the  blacker  future.  From  them  we  heard 
awful  tales  of  massacres  and  looting  during  the  Bol- 
shevist domination  over  the  Black  Sea  regions.  Of 
these  the  most  dreadful  was  that  of  the  cruiser  Almaz. 
There  have  been  published  many  imaginative  reports 
of  Bolshevist  massacres; but  for  horror  these  are  equalled 
by  many  true  stories  that  have  never  been  fully  told, 
and  never  will  be  until  the  veil  of  isolation  is  lifted  and 
the  seeker  after  truth  is  free  to  gather  his  information  at 
first-hand. 

I  have  every  reason  to  believe  the  story  of  the  Almaz, 
It  was  vouched  for  not  only  by  Vladimir  Franzovitch 
and  other  Russians  whom  we  met  in  Odessa,  but  by 
Englishmen  who  were  living  in  the  city  at  the  time,  and 
are  now  back  in  England.  Moreover,  it  is  perpetuated 
in  a  local  song  similar  to  those  of  the  French  Revolution. 

The  Bolsheviki  who  first  occupied  Odessa,  in  the  early 
spring  of  191 8,  made  their  headquarters  on  the  cruiser 
Almaz.  Their  first  batch  of  arrests  comprised  about 
two  hundred  officers,  with  a  few  officials  and  other  civil- 
ians.   These  were  taken  to  the  Almaz,  and  lined  up  on 


276         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

the  deck.  Each  man  in  turn  was  asked:  "Would  you 
prefer  a  hot  bath  or  a  cold?'*  Those  that  chose  a  cold 
bath  were  thrown  into  the  Black  Sea,  with  weights  tied 
to  their  feet.  Those  that  said  "hot"  were  stoked  into 
the  furnaces — alive. 

Later,  one  MurraviefF,  believed  to  have  been  formerly  a 
agent  provocateur  of  the  Tsarist  secret  police,  came  to  Odes- 
sa as  Bolsheviki  commissary.  He  divided  the  city  into 
four  sections  and  the  Red  Guards  into  four  parties,  each 
of  which  was  allotted  its  particular  district  for  three  days 
of  licensed  looting.  The  Saturnalia  was  due  to  begin  in 
three  days'  time,  when  the  first  Austro-Hungarian  de- 
tachment landed  to  restore  order,  in  response  to  the 
Ukrainian  Provisional  Government's  invitation.  Many 
of  the  looters  were  rounded  up  and  shot;  but  the  Bol- 
sheviki leaders,  including  MurraviefF  and  several  Jews, 
escaped  with  millions  of  roubles,  commandeered  from 
the  bank  reserves.  MurraviefF  afterward  had  the  de- 
cency to  commit  suicide,  but  his  Jewish  colleagues  con- 
tinued to  flourish  in  Soviet  Russia. 

Odessa  had  a  respite  from  Bolshevist  domination 
until  the  tragedy  of  March,  191 9.  Then,  after  a  period 
of  occupation  by  an  insufficient  Franco-Greek  force, 
the  city  was  evacuated  in  the  face  of  an  army  of  Soviet 
troops.  Credible  eye-witnesses  report  the  massacre  of 
three  thousand  people  within  a  few  days  of,  Odessa's 
recapture  by  the  Bolsheviks. 

For  all  I  know  to  the  contrary,  Lenine — despite  the 
proved  and  damning  evidence  of  past  connections  with 
the  German  Kaiser's  penetration  agents  and  the  Rus- 
sian Tsar's  police  agents — may  be  an  intellectual  idealist 
who  considers  all  means  justifiable  in  establishing  a 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         277 

form  of  communism  that  may  eventually  better  the 
world.  But  I  do  know  with  certainty  that  Bolshevism, 
as  practised  locally  in  Russia  by  unthinking  hordes  who 
are  not  and  do  not  pretend  to  be  intellectual  idealists, 
means  universal  injustice,  flagrant  robbery,  senseless 
butchery,  and  a  tyranny  at  least  equal  to  that  of  Ivan 
the  Terrible  or  any  Oriental  despot.  All  the  writings 
of  biased  minority  mongers  who  have  confined  their 
investigations  to  consorting  with  Soviet  officials  at  Mos- 
cow and  Petrograd,  all  the  blinkered  sympathy  of  la- 
bour agitators  who  devote  their  lives  to  fostering  a  dia- 
bolic discontent,  all  the  chirruping  of  the  mentally  per- 
verted women  and  men  who,  at  a  safe  distance  of  thou- 
sands of  miles  from  actuality,  have  adopted  theoretical 
Bolshevism  as  the  latest  fashion  in  parlour  enthusiasms, 
cannot  condone  the  fact. 

Money  and  life  were  the  only  cheap  commodities  in 
Odessa.  Paper  roubles  of  every  denomination — Im- 
perial notes,  Kerensky  notes,  Ukrainian  notes,  and 
Municipal  notes — ^they  were  in  scores  and  hundreds  of 
thousands;  and  each  issue  was  trailed  by  several  kinds 
of  forgery^  so  that  only  an  expert  could  tell  the  true  from 
the  false. 

Everything^else  was  rare,  and  wildly  expensive.  Meat 
was  ten,  weak  tea  a  hundred  and  ten  roubles  a  pound. 
New  suits  of  clothes  were  unobtainable  at  any  price, 
for  there  was  no  cloth.  Second-hand  clothes  could 
be  bought  in  the  Jewish  market,  where  the  dealers 
demanded  from  eight  hundred  roubles  for  a  shoddy 
suit  and  from  five  hundred  for  an  overcoat.  A  collar 
cost  eight  roubles;  a  handkerchief  four.  Other  prices 
were  proportionate 


278  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Seven-eighths  of  the  factories  were  idle.  As  for  the 
rich  grain  lands  of  the  Ukraine,  about  three-quarters 
of  their  produce  went  to  Austria  and  Germany,  this  be- 
ing the  price  paid  by  Skoropadsky's  government  for  the 
policing  of  the  Ukrainian  Republic. 

The  colossal  price  of  things  was  due  as  much  to  Jew- 
ish speculation  as  to  scarcity.  Everything  for  sale 
passed  through  the  hands  of  a  succession  of  middlemen 
before  it  reached  the  pubHc.  A  consignment  from  Aus- 
tria or  Germany,  or  the  produce  of  a  local  factory,  would 
be  bought  by  one  speculator,  sold  to  another,  re-sold  to 
a  third,  and  perhaps  to  a  fourth  and  a  fifth.  Each  of  the 
middlemen  would  allot  himself  a  profit  of  from  twenty 
to  two  hundred  per  cent.  The  same  process  was  ap- 
plied to  the  boots,  foodstuffs,  and  equipment  which 
Austrian  officers  and  soldiers  stole  from  their  military 
stores  and  sold  to  the  speculators. 

All  day  long  Franconi's  and  Robinart's,the  two  princi- 
pal cafes  of  Odessa,  were  infested  by  swarms  of  swarthy 
Jews,  who  wandered  from  table  to  table,  selling  and  re- 
selling, and  piling  up  enormous  fortunes  in  paper  rou- 
bles. And  elsewhere  in  the  city  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Russians  were  in  little  more  than  rags,  many  thou- 
sands of  them  half  dead  from  want  of  nourishment. 

As  they  passed  the  cafes  where  the  Jews  sat  and 
haggled  and  made  it  ever  more  difficult  for  the  half- 
starved  masses  to  keep  alive,  the  poorer  Russians  talked 
of  pogroms.  The  talk  culminated  later,  when  the  Ger- 
mans and  Austrians  had  withdrawn  from  Odessa,  in 
massacres  of  the  less  prosperous  Jews,  while  the  richer 
ones,  who  were  the  real  promoters  of  discord,  were 
warned  in  time  and  stole  away  with  their  wealth;  as 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         279 

always  happens  when  pogroms  are  threatened.  The 
actions  of  the  Ukrainian  Jews  during  the  Austro-Ger- 
man  occupation  provided  a  very  typical  instance  of  the 
provocative  part  played  by  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe. 
The  Hebrew — more  calculating  and  infinitely  more 
cunning  than  the  Slav  peasant  and  workman — ties, 
binds,  and  enmeshes  him  in  a  web  of  usury,  speculation, 
mortgage,  and  irksome  liability;  until  the  Slav,  goaded 
beyond  his  powers  of  endurance  by  the  men  who  prey 
on  his  instability  and  ignorance,  rises  up  and  seeks  a 
solution  in  regrettable  violence. 


Glorious  news  heartened  White  and  myself  during  the 
period  of  waiting  for  the  Red  Cross  ship  to  sail.  Each 
morning  we  walked  down  the  principal  street  of  Odessa 
until  we  reached  Austrian  Headquarters,  outside  of 
which  were  posted  the  daily  official  and  press  bulletins 
written  in  German.  I  mingled  with  the  crowd  before 
the  notice  board  while  White  looked  in  a  shop  window 
until  I  rejoined  him  and  related  the  latest  Allied  vic- 
tory— the  capture  of  Lille,  Roubaix,  Turcoing,  La  Bas- 
see,  Ostend,  or  the  final  phases  of  Allenby's  advance  in 
Syria.  With  Hatton,  Waite,  and  other  Britishers  we 
rejoiced  greatly  in  private;  while  the  German  soldiers 
became  glummer  and  glummer,  and  the  Austrian  offi- 
cers lost  a  portion  of  their  corseted  poise  as  they  strut- 
ted, peacock-wise,  along  the  boulevards. 

The  Russian  bourgeoisie  remained  apathetic  as  ever. 
Their  main  interest  in  the  prospect  of  a  general  armistice 
seemed  to  be  the  probable  effect  on  prices,  and  on  the 
rouble's  value,  of  the  expected  arrival  of  the  British. 


28o  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

As  for  our  Bolshevist  neighbours,  they  continued  to  un- 
earth and  clean  their  rifles  and  revolvers;  while  the  corps 
of  ex-officers  drilled,  and  planned  defence  works  outside 
Odessa. 

Under  cover  of  dusk  we  slipped  past  the  Austrian 
sentry  at  the  dock  gates  on  the  evening  before  the  Red 
Cross  ship  left  for  Varna,  and  boarded  her.  Louis 
Demy  and  Pat  OTlaherty  accompanied  us  as  far  as 
the  gangway. 

We  remained  hidden  throughout  the  night,  and  only 
ventured  into  the  open  when,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  we  steamed  out  of  the  wide-curved  harbour 
to  the  open  sea. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

SOFIA,    SALONIKA,   AND   SO   TO   BED 

Stimulated  by  the  knowledge  that  Varna  was  occupied 
by  the  British  we  walked  the  decks  openly,  flaunting 
our  protean  roles  of  British  officers,  highly  contented 
men,  first-class  passengers,  and  third-class  scarecrows. 

Like  the  Batoum,  the  Red  Cross  ship  brought  others 
who  began  the  voyage  as  semi-stowaways.  Commo- 
dore Wolkenau  had  told  us  in  Odessa  that  among  our 
shipmates  would  be  a  certain  General  from  Denikin's 
ariny.  We  found  him — a  tall,  bearded,  Grand-Duke- 
Nicholas-like  man — dining  in  the  second-class  saloon, 
and  wearing  a  suit  of  clothes  nearly  as  shabby  as  our 
own.  To  dodge  investigation  by  the  Austrian  port 
authorities  he  had  assumed,  with  the  connivance  of  the 
ship's  captain,  the  character  of  an  engineer's  mate.  The 
"engineer"  who  owned  him  as  mate  was  in  reality  a 
commander  of  the  Russian  Imperial  Navy,  also  at- 
tached to  Denikin's  forces.  The  pair  of  them  were 
travelling  to  Salonika,  as  emissaries  of  General  Deni- 
kin,  to  ask  the  Franco-British  command  for  arms,  am- 
munition, and  financial  support. 

Another  fellow-passenger  was  a  former  lieutenant  of 
the  Russian  navy,  who,  since  the  German  occupation 
of  Sevastopol,  had  been  acting  as  an  agent  of  the  Allies. 
He  carried  a  complete  list  of  the  German  and  Austrian 

281 


282  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

ships  and  submarines  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  details  of 
the  coast  defences. 

The  three  days*  voyage  was  uneventful.  The  Black 
Sea  remained  at  its  smoothest.  A  pleasant  sun  har- 
monized with  the  good-will  and  friendliness  of  all  on 
board,  and  with  our  deep  content,  as  we  continued  to 
tread  on  air  and  impatient  expectation.  A  Bulgarian 
destroyer  pranced  out  to  meet  us,  and  led  the  vessel 
through  the  devious  minefields  and  into  the  miniature, 
toy-like  harbour  of  Varna.  The  Bulgarian  authorities 
imposed  a  four  days'  quarantine  upon  all  passengers; 
but  the  general,  the  naval  commander,  and  the  Franco- 
British  agent  joined  with  us  in  avoiding  this  delay  by 
sending  ashore  a  collective  note  to  the  French  naval 
officer  who  controlled  the  port.  As  at  Odessa,  we 
rowed  ashore  with  our  complete  luggage  wrapped  in  two 
newspapers,  each  of  which  contained  a  toothbrush,  a 
revolver,  some  cartridges,  a  comb,  a  razor,  a  spare  shirt, 
a  spare  collar, ^nd  a  few  handkerchiefs. 

Outside  the  docks  a  British  trooper  in  dusty  khaki, 
shoulder-badged  with  the  name  of  a  famous  yeomanry 
regiment,  passed  at  a  gallop.  The  sight  of  him  sent  an 
acute  thrill  through  me,  for  he  was  a  symbol  of  all  that 
I  had  missed  since  the  day  when  I  woke  up  to  find  my- 
self pinned  beneath  the  wreck  of  an  aeroplane,  on  a  hill- 
side near  Shechem. 

White  looked  after  him,  hungrily.  He  had  been 
among  the  Turks  for  three  years,  and  since  capture 
this  was  his  first  sight  of  a  British  Tommy  on  duty. 

"How  about  it.?"  I  asked. 

**I  don't  know.  Somehow  it  makes  me  feel  nohow  in 
general,  and  anyhow  in  particular." 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  283 

We  reported  to  the  British  general  commanding  the 
force  of  occupation,  and  gladly  delivered  ourselves  of 
information  about  Odessa  for  the  benefit  of  his  Intel- 
ligence Officer.  At  the  hotel  occupied  by  the  staff  there 
were  preHminary  doubts  of  whether  such  hobo-like 
ragamuffins  could  be  British  officers;  but  our  knowl- 
edge of  army  shop-talk,  of  the  cuss  words  fashionable  a 
year  earlier,  and  of  the  chorus  of  "Good-bye-ee'*  soon 
convinced  the  neatly  uniformed  members  of  the  mess 
that  we  really  were  lost  lambs  waiting  to  be  reintro- 
duced to  rations,  drinks,  and  the  field  cashier. 

For  many  days  our  extravagant  shabbiness  stood  in 
the  way  of  a  complete  realization  that  we  were  no  longer 
underdogs  of  the  fortune  of  war,  but  had  come  back 
into  our  own.  Bulgarian  officers,  their  truculence  in 
no  way  impaired  by  their  country's  downfall,  wanted 
us  to  leave  our  first-class  carriage  on  the  way  to  Sofia. 
Outside  Sofia  station  it  was  impossible  to  hire  a  cab,  for 
no  cabman  would  credit  us  with  the  price  of  a  fare.  The 
staff  of  the  British  Mission,  to  whom  we  gave  reams  of 
reports,  tried  their  politest  not  to  laugh  outright  at  our 
clothes,  but  broke  down  before  the  green-and-yellow 
check  waistcoat,  many  sizes  too  large,  which  White  had 
received  from  a  British  civiHan  in  Odessa. 

Even  the  real  Ford  car,  lent  us  by  the  British  Mission  for 
the  journey  to  Salonika,  failed  to  establish  a  sense  of  dig- 
nity. Once,  when  we  stopped  on  the  road  near  a  British 
column,  thedriver  was  asked  who  werehis  pals  thetramps. 

We  drove  joyously  down  the  Struma  valley  and 
through  the  Kreshna  and  Ruppel  passes,  still  littered 
with  the  debris  of  the  Bulgarian  retreat.  Rusted 
remnants  of  guns  lolled  on  the  slopes  descending  to  the 


284  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

river.  Broken  carts,  twisted  motor-lorries,  horse  and 
oxen  skeletons — all  the  flotsam  of  a  broken  army — 
mottled  the  roadside.  In  the  rocky  sides  of  the  moun- 
tain passes  were  great  clefts  from  which  dislodged 
boulders  had  hurtled  down  on  the  Bulgarian  columns 
when  British  aeroplanes  helped  the  retreat  with  bomb- 
dropping.  We  passed  through  the  scraggy  uplands  of 
Lower  Macedonia,  and  so  to  Salonika. 

The  real  Ford  car  halted  in  the  imposing  grounds  that 
surrounded  the  imposing  building  occupied  by  British 
General  Headquarters  at  Salonika.  As  we  climbed  the 
steps  leading  to  the  front  door,  warmly  expectant  of  a 
welcome  by  reason  of  our  information  from  South  Rus- 
sia, an  orderly  pointed  out  that  this  entrance  was  re- 
served for  Big  Noises  and  By-No-Means-Little  Noises. 
We  swerved  aside,  and  entered  an  unpretentious  side- 
door,  labelled  "Officers  Only." 

"Wojer  want  ?"  asked  a  Cockney  Tommy,  who  sat  at 
a  desk  inside  it. 

"We  want  to  report  to  Major  Greentabs,  of  the  In- 
telligence Department.'' 

The  Tommy  looked  not  -too  -contemptuously  at  our 
sunken  cheeks,  our  shapeless  hats,  our  torn,  creased, 
mud-spotted  tatterdemalion  clothes,  and  almost  ad- 
miringly at  White's  check  waistcoat. 

"Nah,  look  'ere,  civvies,"  he  instructed,  "yer  speak 
English  well  inuf.  Carncher  read  it  ?  The  notice  says 
'Officers  Only',  an'  it  means  only  officers.  Dagoes 
'ave  ter  use  the  yentrance  rahnd  the  corner,  so  aht  yew 
go,  double  quick." 

That  day  Salonika  gave  itself  up  to  revelry  by  reason 
of  an  unfounded  report   that   an  armistice  had  been 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         285 

signed  on  the  Western  front.  One  of  the  celebrators 
was  a  certain  2nd-class  air  mechanic  of  the  Royal  Air 
Force.  We  stopped  him  in  the  street,  and  asked  the 
way  to  R.  A.  F.  headquarters.  Beatifically  he  breathed 
whiskied  breath  at  me  as  he  stared  in  unsteady  surprise. 

"George,"  he  called  to  his  companion,  *^the  war*s 
over — hie — and  here's  two  EngHsh  blokes  in  civvies. 
Want  to  join  the  Royal  Air  Force,  they  do.''  Then, 
tapping  me  on  the  chest — "Don't  you  join  the  Royal 
Air  Force.     We're  a  rotten  lot." 

Armed  with  signed  certificates  of  identity  we  went  to 
the  officers'  rest  house  to  demand  beds. 

"Speak  EngHsh?"  said  a  quartermaster-sergeant  as 
we  entered. 

"Yes." 

"  Been  expecting  you.  The  Greek  contractor's  sons, 
aren't  you?" 

Later,  not  long  before  the  bulletin-board  showed  the 
rumoured  armistice  with  Germany  to  be  premature,  an 
orderly  in  the  rest  house  wished  to  share  the  great  news 
that  wasn't  true  with  the  nearest  person,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  White.  He  stopped  short  on  seeing  a  dubi- 
ous civilian.  But  his  good-fellowship  was  not  to  be 
denied.  French  being  the  lingua  franca  of  the  multi- 
nationalitied  troops  in  Salonika,  he  slapped  White  on 
the  back  and  announced:  ^' Matey,  la  guerre  estfinie!** 

Metamorphosed  by  ordnance  uniforms  from  third- 
class  scarecrows  to  the  regulation  pattern  of  officer,  we 
spent  glorious  days  of  rest  and  recuperation.  Then,  by 
the  next  boat  for  Port  Said,  we  left  Salonika  the  squalid 
for  Cairo  the  comfortable;  and  so  to  the  world  where  they 
dined,  danced,  demobilized,  and  signed  treaties  of  peace. 


EPILOGUE 

A    DAMASCUS    POSTSCRIPT;    AND    SOME    WORDS    ON    THE 

KNIGHTS    OF   ARABY,    A    CRUSADER    IN    SHORTS,    A    VERY 

NOBLE    LADYE  AND  SOME  HAPPY  ENDINGS 

Of  all  the  cities  in  the  Near  and  Middle  East  Damascus 
is  at  once  the  most  ancient,  the  most  unchanged  by 
time,  the  most  unreservedly  Oriental,  and  the  most 
elusive. 

Constantinople  is  Byzantium — cum  Mohammedan 
lust  for  power — cum  Ottoman  domination — cum  Lev^ 
antine  materialism — cum  European  exploitation  and 
Bourse  transactions,  in  a  setting  of  natural  and  archi- 
tural  magnificence;  a  city  that  expresses  itself  variously 
and  inharmoniously  by  a  blendless  chorus  from  an  un- 
mixable  mixture  of  creeds  and  races;  a  charming,  femi- 
nine city  with  a  wayward  soul;  a  cruel,  unstable  city 
of  gamblers;  a  city  of  pleasant,  vine-trellised  alley- 
ways, delightful  waterways,  fear-haunted  prisons  and 
extravagant  rogueries;  to  my  mind  the  most  intriguing 
city  in  the  world. 

Cairo  is  a  compound  of  sphinx-and-pyramid  an- 
tiquity, modern  opulence,  degenerate  Arab  touts,  Arab 
Babudom,  reserved  and  Simla-like  officialdom,  the  cos- 
mopolitan gaiety  of  four  great  hotels,  sordid  and  curious 
vice,  sand-fringed  suburbs,  traffic  in  tourists  and  fake 
scarabs,  and  the  compelling,  changeless  charm  of  the  Nile. 

286 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  287 

Alexandria  is  bastard  Byzantine-Levantine,  with  a 
wonderful  past,  an  insistent  Cotton  Exchange,  a  lovely 
harbour,  a  crooked  racecourse  where  crooked  races  are 
run,  and  a  summer  colony  for  Cairo's  white-ducked 
Westerns. 

Port  Sai'd  is  a  dull,  heat-heavy  hell,  at  which  the 
traffic  to  the  Far  East  calls  of  unwelcome  necessity, 
pays  its  tolls,  skirts  the  green-gray  statue  of  De  Lesseps, 
and  gladly  glides  down  the  turquoise-toned  Suez  Canal. 

Suez  is  a  hard-faced  ex-courtesan,  formerly  famed  for 
outrageous  spectacles,  but  now  converted  by  that  mis- 
sionary of  war-time  expedience  the  British  Provost- 
Marshal  into  an  unreal,  uninviting,  hypocritical  re- 
spectability; a  harbour  landlady  for  squat-sailed,  danc- 
ing dhows, 

Mecca  is  the  pilgrim  city  in  excelsis,  with  a  Holy 
Stone,  overpowering  heat,  much  colour  and  squalor,  a 
reputation  for  impenetrability,  and  no  traditions  earlier 
than  the  birth  of  the  Prophet. 

Jerusalem  has  a  stupendous  history  and  is  yet  the 
most  disappointing  city  in  the  world;  a  small,  gilded- 
gingerbread  city  with  no  beautiful  building  except  the 
blue-tiled  Mosque  of  Omar,  no  first-class  view  except 
that  of  the  walls  and  roof-tops  from  the  Mount  of 
Olives;  a  city  trading  its  past  for  Western  charity;  a 
city  with  a  rebuilt  Tower  of  David  masquerading  as  the 
original,  a  probably  authentic  relic  in  the  Tomb  of 
Absalom,  and  many  dubious  ones  where,  within  the 
space  of  fifty  square  yards  of  beflagged  church-floor, 
mumbling  guides  point  out  to  pilgrims  in  pince-nez  the 
supposed  tombs  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  Joseph  of  Ari- 
mathea,  and  Nicodemus,  hard  by  the  supposed  site  of 


288  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Calvary,  strewn  with  supposed  fragments  of  the  Cross; 
a  city  sacred  to  three  great  rehgions,  exemphfied  lo- 
cally by  scheming  town-Arabs;  ring-curled,  lethargic 
Jews  aloof  from  their  Western  kindred;  and  swarthy, 
lethargic  Christians  educated  and  largely  supported  by 
Euro-American  subsidies;  a  city  of  narrow,  denomina- 
tional schools  that  ignore  the  Fellowship  of  Man;  a  city 
whose  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  should  be  an  epi- 
tome of  peace  and  good-will,  but  yet  is  a  place  where, 
in  the  name  of  Christian  charity.  Catholic,  Orthodox, 
Coptic,  Armenian,  and  various  kinds  of  Protestant 
priests  intrigue  and  squabble  over  claims  to  guard  rel- 
ics, windows,  and  corners,  and  defray  the  cost  of  holy 
candle-light  by  collecting  from  visitors  enough  money 
to  burn  a  hundred  and  one  candles  for  one  and  a  hun- 
dred years;  a  city  better  read  about  than  examined. 

Bagdad  is  a  city  with  a  romantic  name,  some  fine 
Arabian  architecture,  and  an  impressive  western  gate 
whence  the  Damascus-bound  caravans  move  dustily 
across  the  desert;  a  city  fallen  from  greatness  to  the  date 
and  grain  trade,  minor  bazaars,  and  the  steamer  and 
dhow  traffic  of  the  broad-bosomed  Tigris;  a  city  redo- 
lent of  all  that  Haroun-al-Raschid  was  and  modern 
Mesopotamia's  opportunist  sheikhs  emphatically  are 
not;  a  city  with  a  prosperous  future,  thanks  to  the  Brit- 
ish engineers  who  have  irrigated  the  Tigris-Euphrates 
basin  into  the  way  it  should  go. 

Mosul  is  an  unlovely  mud  city  that  straggles  around 
the  ruins  of  Nineveh  the  Magnificent. 

But  Damascus  is  indescribably  a  city  with  an  un- 
fathomable soul.  In  its  complex  ancestry  are  the 
strains  of  many   ancient  civilizations.     The  crooked 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  289 

alleys  and  decrepit  buildings  of  its  oldest  quarter, 
perched  on  a  mountain  projection  high  above  Damas- 
cus proper,  have  an  origin  lost  in  the  conjectural  mists 
of  an  epoch  when  the  written  word  was  not.  Another 
part  of  it  was  co-incident  with  Baalbek  and  sun-wor- 
ship. The  plain  facade  of  many  a  house  (purposely 
plain  to  divert  the  cupidity  of  Turkish  pashas)  hides  a 
wide,  white  courtyard  soothed  by  fountains,  the  plash- 
ing of  which  is  coolingly  heard  in  divanned  rooms  pre- 
cious with  rugs  and  hangings,  and  ornamented  by  mi- 
nutely detailed  designs  in  fancy  arches  and  miniature 
cupolas — houses  exactly  as  they  were  when  tenanted 
by  rich  merchants  who  flourished  under  the  greater 
Arabian  caliphs.  The  Street  called  Straight,  the  glass- 
roofed,  unique  bazaar  and  a  dozen  other  city-marks  are 
bafflingly  suggestive  of  contact  with  a  dozen  periods  of 
greatness.  And  last  year,  when  the  demoralized  Turks 
marched  out  of  the  city  under  the  Arab  flag  that  flew 
defiantly  from  the  city  gate,  Arab  thinkers  began  to 
dream  of  yet  another  period  of  greatness,  in  which  Da- 
mascus was  to  be  the  centre  of  a  re-united  Arabian 
Empire.     .     .     . 

My  motive  in  returning  to  Damascus  was  threefold — 
certain  minor  work  at  Air  Force  Headquarters,  an  un- 
praiseworthy  resolve  to  buy  carpets  and  knick-knacks 
before  other  officers  of  the  Palestine  Army  chose  their 
pickings  from  the  merchants'  war  hoards,  and  a  sneak- 
ingly  benevolent  desire  to  see  George,  the  mongrel 
interpreter  who  had  been  buUied  into  betraying  my 
escape  plans  in  Baranki  Barracks,  but  who  was  yet 
such  a  pathetic  little  nondescript. 


290         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

With  a  passenger  I  left  Ramleh  aerodrome  in  a  Bris- 
tol Fighter;  for  with  an  aeroplane  available  who  would 
think  of  travelling  by  train  or  automobile  over  the  dis- 
ordered rails  and  roads  of  Syria?  It  was  a  sun-shim- 
mery  day,  pleasantly  cool  in  the  early  part  of  a  Pales- 
tine November.  Everything  suggested  peace  as  we 
flew  northeastward — the  calm  cloudlessness,  the  silent, 
sparkling  countryside,  the  rhythmic  purring  of  the  mo- 
tor. The  ground  mosaic  was  radiant  with  that  acute 
clearness  which  makes  flying  so  much  more  interesting 
in  the  East  and  Middle  East  than  elsewhere. 

Far  away  to  the  rissht  we  could  see  from  our  height  of 
6,000  feet  the  ghostlike  outline  of  the  Dead  Sea  behind 
the  bleak-ridged  hills  beyond  Jericho.  To  the  left  were 
the  shining  sea,  white-roofed  Jaff'a,  and  the  lines  of  sand 
dunes  that  curved  in  and  out  of  the  coloured  country- 
side. Ahead  and  around  were  brown  surfaces  of  grain 
land  and  green  blotches  of  woodland,  interspaced  with 
gray-gleaming  villages. 

Soon  the  Bristol  Fighter  droned  over  what  had  been 
the  old  front  of  Allenby's  left  flank,  with  uneven 
trenches  snaking  southeastward  from  the  sand-bordered 
coast  to  the  Jordan  basin.  The  Jordan  itself  twisted 
and  writhed  through  its  green-and-gold  valley,  over 
which  occasional  trenchworks  zigzagged.  Then  came 
the  hill  desolation  of  Lower  Samaria.  Near  Shechem 
I  reached  out  a  fur-gloved  hand  and  showed  my  pas- 
senger the  approximate  spot  where,  seven  months 
earlier,  I  was  shot  down  and  awoke  to  find  Arab  no- 
mads approaching  my  wrecked  machine.  Slightly  to 
the  west  was  Nazareth,  perched  pleasingly  on  high 
ground. 


EASTERN  NIGHTS--AND  FLIGHTS         291 

The  pear-shaped  Sea  of  GaHlee  flickered  with  irides- 
cent twinkUng  in  the  sunHght.  Just  north  of  where  the 
river  flows  into  the  lake  I  picked  out  the  point  at  which 
a  regiment  of  the  AustraHan  Light  Horse,  confronted 
on  the  far  bank  by  a  Turco-German  force  sent  from 
Damascus  to  defend  the  ford,  swam  their  horses  across 
the  Jordan  and  routed  the  enemy. 

The  patchwork  flatness  below  changed  to  more  plains 
of  gray-brown  grain-country  and  gray-green  orchard 
land  neighboured  on  the  east  by  the  desert  that  was  a 
populous  province  in  the  days  when  armies  of  age-old 
civilizations — ^Assyrian,  Babylonian,  Medean,  Persian, 
Macedonian,  and  Arabian — swept  backward  and  for- 
ward in  waves  of  conquest  and  counter-conquest,  to  and 
from  Nineveh,  Babylon,  Ctesiphon,  and  Old  Bagdad, 
until  the  Turkish  hordes  swarmed  across  from  Central 
Asia  and  ruined  all  the  lands  they  conquered. 

Small  and  indistinct  at  first,  then  expanding  into  a 
vivid  clearness  as  we  flew  toward  it,  Damascus  came 
into  sight;  and  of  all  the  views  from  the  air  that  I  re- 
member from  flights  in  Palestine,  Egypt,  Syria,  France, 
Italy,  Bulgaria,  Greece,  England,  and  America,  this  was 
incomparably  the  loveliest. 

Far  away  to  the  west  was  Mount  Lebanon,  and  from 
It  stretched  a  line  of  mountains,  growing  ever  bleaker 
as  they  neared  the  Syrian  Desert.  The  low  ground 
dominated  by  the  heights  was  a  maze  of  forests,  wheat- 
fields,  pasturage,  and  orchard  land,  intermingled  with 
patches  of  sand.  Straight  ahead  was  the  ancient  city 
of  Damascus,  a  straggling  surface  of  white  roofs  pierced 
by  the  domes  and  minarets  of  many  mosques,  all  in  a 
gray  whiteness,  as  if  powdered  with  the  dust  of  its  four 


292  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

thousand  years  of  history.  Pharpar  and  Abana,  the 
twin  rivers  of  Damascus,  showed  up  plainly  as,  con- 
verging and  diverging,  they  descended  from  their 
sources  on  the  rim  of  the  mountain,  and  lost  themselves 
in  the  jig-saw  of  crooked  streets  and  square-topped 
houses.  The  background  is  the  wide,  shimmering  des- 
ert that  loses  itself  on  the  eastern  horizon. 

Having,  to  the  roaring  accompaniment  of  a  191 8 
Hispano-Suiza  aero-engine,  circled  over  this  city  half 
as  old  as  time,  I  spiralled  down  and  landed  on  the  aero- 
drome. 

On  horses  borrowed  from  the  Sikhs  who  guarded  the 
aerodrome  we  cantered  towards  the  city,  three  miles 
distant.  The  road  was  utterly  vile,  for  apart  from 
Turkish  neglect  it  had  for  three  years  been  dented  and 
spoiled  by  German  motor  lorries.  Every  few  yards 
we  had  to  edge  our  horses  round  some  large  hole. 

Inside  Damascus  long-disused  tram-lines  rose  high 
above  the  roadway.  Through  the  narrow,  winding 
streets  there  streamed  a  medley  of  camels,  horses,  fat 
men  riding  on  thin  donkeys,  goats,  rainbow-robed  Bed- 
ouins,veiled  women  in  black,  and  fezzed  Syrians  and 
Armenians.  All  of  them — camels,  donkeys,  horses,  and 
humans — ^wound  in  and  around  each  other  without  any 
pretence  at  order. 

Under  such  conditions  the  least  mishap  is  enough  to 
bring  about  a  block  in  the  haphazard  traffic.  We  were 
held  up  for  nearly  twenty  minutes  when  a  donkey,  with 
a  huge  load  of  wood  straddled  on  its  back,  lay  down 
near  a  hole  in  the  road,  and  refused  to  budge.  Men, 
women,  and  animals  mingled  confusedly,  and  exhorta- 
tion and  imprecations  were  flung  at  the  donkey  and  its 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         293 

master.  The  onlookers  were  raining  advice  as  we 
halted  our  horses  on  the  rim  of  the  crowd,  but  none 
made  an  attempt  to  help.  And  the  following  is  an 
approximate  but  far  from  literal  translation  of  a  few 
remarks : 

"O  thou  unfortunate  one!  He  has  a  donkey  with  a 
stubborn  spirit.  It  has  deposited  itself  on  the  ground 
and  most  annoyingly  refuses  to  rise." 

"  Beat  it  hard,  I  say !  I  have  a  string  of  camels  which 
become  unruly  because  they  cannot  proceed.  Beat  it, 
I  say!" 

**Nay,  rather  speak  kindly  and  apply  gentle  pressure 
to  the  under-parts.  Then  will  it  Hft  its  forefeet  and 
Stand  erect.     Stubborn  donkeys  care  naught  for  blows." 

** Cow-faced  son  of  an  exceedingly  fat  she-dog!  Dis- 
place thy  heavy  hoof  from  my  astonishingly  painful 
toes!" 

"Ah-ee!  Ah-ee!  But  a  moment  hence  I  had  a 
money-purse,  and  it  has  left  me." 

**0  thou  unfortunate  one!  He  had  a  money-purse, 
and  it  has  left  him.     O  thou  unfortunate  one ! " 

And  although  all  knew  that  the  purse  was  probably 
hidden  in  the  folds  of  some  Arab's  robe,  those  near  the 
unfortunate  one  searched  and  scratched  the  ground, 
probably  none  more  assiduously  than  the  man  who 
could  have  produced  it. 

Now  if  the  period  had  been  two  months  earher  a 
Turkish  gendarme  would  have  taken  the  donkey-owner 
apart,  and,  if  he  failed  to  offer  a  bribe,  shot  his  prostrate 
beast  and  hauled  its  carcase  to  the  roadside.  As  likely 
as  not  it  would  have  been  the  gendarme  who  stole  the 
unfortunate  one's  money. 


294         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

What  actually  happened  was  this.  A  sun-browned 
man  in  light  khaki  tunic,  short  trousers,  and  bare  knees 
sauntered  along,  a  cigarette  drooping  from  the  left- 
hand  corner  of  his  mouth. 

"Saa-eeda,  Tommy  Effendi,'*  said  one  of  the  loiterers, 
making  way  for  him. 

"Damned  old  fool  of  a  moke,"  said  the  man  in  shorts; 
then  bent  down  and  alternately  stroked,  pushed,  and 
spoke  to  the  donkey.  Somehow  he  persuaded  it  to  rise 
and  start  walking.  The  crowd  disentangled  itself  and 
its  animals  from  each  other,  and  dispersed.  And  the 
man  in  shorts,  his  cigarette  still  dangling  from  the  left- 
hand  corner  of  his  mouth,  passed  on,  as  casual  and  un- 
surprised as  if  he  had  been  in  Brixton  or  Birmingham. 

Both  in  appearance  and  in  spirit  Damascus  had 
changed  much  since  the  days  of  my  captivity.  Desti- 
tution was  yet  evident,  but  far  less  flagrantly  than  when 
I  had  seen  starving  babies  lying  against  the  walls  and 
crying  their  hunger.  There  were  no  more  furtive  looks, 
and  many  more  smiles.  The  swaggering  Germans  were 
supplanted  by  companionable  Tommies,  the  tyrannous 
Turkish  gendarmes  by  the  headdressed  Arab  poHce. 
In  the  long,  arcaded  bazaar  the  traders  had  brought  out 
their  stocks  of  carpets,  prayer-rugs,  silks,  and  precious 
stones,  hoarded  during  the  war,  and  were  selling  them 
at  prices  far  below  those  ruling  in  war-time  Cairo  or 
war-time  anywhere  else.  And  everywhere  the  Arabian 
flag  was  prominent. 

For  many  a  day  the  talk  in  the  bazaars  had  been  of  a 
new  Arabian  Empire,  as  a  reward  for  the  exploits  of 
King  Hussein's  Arabs— exploits  that  had  not  only  freed 
Arabia  and  helped  to  free  Syria,  but  had  involved  thf 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS         295 

abolition  of  all  blood-feuds  in  a  thousand  miles  of  semi- 
lawless  country.  The  Emir  Feisul,  son  of  King  Hussein 
(and  thus  a  direct  descendant  of  the  Prophet),  was  on 
his  way  to  the  Peace  Conference  in  Paris,  accompanied 
by  Colonel  Lawrence,  the  young  Englishman  who  was 
the  soul  of  the  Arab  national  revival,  and  of  the  Arabs' 
epic  campaigns  between  Mecca  and  Damascus.  And 
many  citizens  of  Damascus  were  hoping  that  he  would 
return  with  the  realization  of  their  dreams  that  the  city 
was  to  be  the  centre  of  pan-Arabian  greatness. 


My  enquiries  at  Baranki  Barracks,  and  in  the  offices 
of  the  British  Provost-Marshal  and  the  Arab  gendar- 
merie, failed  to  trace  the  fate  of  George;  and  I  had  to 
be  content  with  the  memory  of  a  futile  little  figure 
standing  on  the  steps  of  our  railway  carriage,  on  the 
morning  after  our  betrayal,  and  saying,  with  despair  in 
his  voice :  '*  I  have  so  little  courage.     I  ask  pardon." 

Of  the  other  intimate  characters  in  the  story  I  can 
account  for  all  but  two.  Jean  Willi,  the  Israelite  drago- 
man who  was  my  benefactor  at  Nazareth,  has  not  yet 
given  me  the  chance  to  pay  back  in  part  the  good  deeds 
that  I  owe  him;  but  I  still  have  hopes.  And  I  can  only 
guess  at  what  has  happened  to  Michael  Ivanovitch 
Titoff,  now  somewhere  behind  the  screen  which,  since 
the  Bolshevist  reoccupation  of  last  spring,  separates 
Odessa  from  the  normal  world.  From  what  I  know  of 
his  character  I  am  certain  that  when  the  Soviet  troops 
arrived  he  proclaimed  himself  a  Bolshevist,  and  took  full 
advantage  of  the  conditions  whereby  the  unrighteous 
have  special  opportunity  to  flourish. 


296  EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

Vladimir  Franzovitch — a  Russian  as  estimable  as 
Michael  Ivanovitch  was  despicable — died  for  the  coun- 
try he  loved  and  despaired  of,  fighting  in  Denikin's 
army. 

For  the  rest,  I  can  oflFer  happy  endings  as  convention- 
ally apposite  as  those  of  the  worst  "best-seller"  of  any 
lady  novelist. 

Miss  Whittaker,  the  noble  girl  who  played  in  Con- 
stantinople the  heroic  part  of  an  Edith  Cavell,  is  now 
Lady  Paul.  Less  than  a  month  ago  an  American  war- 
ship took  her  from  Constantinople  to  Beyrout,  where 
she  married  Captain  Sir  Robert  Paul,  one  of  the  Brit- 
ish officers  whom  she  had  helped  to  escape.  She  now 
lives  in  Aleppo,  where  Paul  commands  the  Arab  gen- 
darmerie. In  this  crowded  narrative  I  have  failed  to  do 
justice  to  the  brave  and  gifted  woman  who  many  times 
risked  liberty  and  life  in  aiding  unfortunate  country- 
men; but  only  because  the  last  thing  she  would  desire  is 
advertisement  have  I  refrained  from  writing  the  eulogy 
she  deserves. 

Another  happy  ending,  almost  too  good  to  be  true, 
was  the  recent  wedding  of  Colonel  Newcombe  and  Mile. 
"X",  the  girl  who  arranged  his  escape  from  Broussa 
and  concealed  him  in  Constantinople  while  he  worked 
for  a  withdrawal  of  Turkey  from  the  war. 

Mr.  S.,  the  British  merchant  who  jeopardized  his 
neck  in  helping  no  less  than  seven  British  officers  to 
liberty,  has  returned  to  England,  and  should  be  con- 
scious of  much  merit. 

The  Turkish  armistice  happened  a  few  days  before 
Theodore  was  to  have  been  hanged.  Fulton  and  Stone 
were  released  from  the  Ministry  of  War  Prison,  and 


EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS  297 

twenty-four  hours  later,  by  means  of  threats,  they  ob- 
tained reprieve  and  freedom  for  the  Greek  waiter  who 
had  hidden  them.  He  was  then  half  dead,  as  a  result 
of  insufficient  food,  and  of  the  dreadful,  disease-ridden, 
insanitary,  crowded  state  of  his  dungeon;  but  he  re- 
covered under  careful  nursing,  and  returned  to  his 
mother  and  sisters,  in  the  house  where  the  gendarmes 
had  captured  Yeats-Brown,  Fulton,  and  Stone. 

The  Maritza  restaurant,  near  Stamboul  station,  still 
flourishes;  but  Theodore  is  no  longer  there.  With  the 
money  gained  by  acting  as  conspirator-in-chief  for 
British  prisoners,  he  talks  of  coming  to  London  and 
opening  a  small  restaurant  of  his  own.  If  this  happens, 
he  can  count  on  regular  customers  from  among  those 
who  saw  him,  with  his  bent  shoulders  and  blue-glassed 
spectacles,  flicking  a  secret  letter  on  to  the  tablecloth, 
under  cover  of  a  menu-card. 

Those  of  us  who  schemed,  escaped,  hoped,  feared, 
wore  disguises  and  whiskers,  assumed  illnesses  and  in- 
sanities, suffered,  and  amused  ourselves  generally  are 
dispersed  over  five  continents.  Fulton  and  Stone  are 
still  in  Constantinople,  but  as  responsible  officials  in- 
stead of  under-dogs  of  war.  White  is  a  quiet-living 
manufacturer  in  Melbourne.  Hill  and  Jones,  the  mad- 
men of  Yozgad,  Haidar  Pasha,  and  Gumuch  Souyou 
have  gone  their  demobilized  ways  in  sanity  and  content, 
one  to  Sydney,  the  other  to  Glasgow.  Paul  is  in  Syria, 
Colonel  Newcombe  in  Egypt.  Yeats-Brown,  ex-Mlle. 
Josephine  Albert,  is  in  London,  with  an  eyeglass  which 
he  kept  intact  through  three  years  of  adventurous  cap- 
tivity, from  the  day  when  he  was  taken  prisoner  near 
Bagdad  to  the  day  when,  from  the  verandah  of  his 


298         EASTERN  NIGHTS— AND  FLIGHTS 

hiding-place  opposite  the  deserted  British  Embassy  in 
Constantinople,  he  looked  along  the  Grande  Rue  de 
Pera  and  learned,  from  the  fluttering  Allied  flags,  that 
the  Turkish  armistice  had  been  signed.  Last  and  least, 
I  am  now  in  civihan  blessedness  and  America. 

Often  I  have  left  the  satisfying  solidity  of  London, 
the  restful  beauty  of  a  Thames  backwater,  the  com- 
forting hospitality  of  New  York,  the  wealth-conscious 
heartiness  of  Chicago,  to  hear  the  chanted  summons  to 
prayer  from  the  minaret  that  faced  my  prison  in  Damas- 
cus, watched  the  intrigues  that  coloured  Constantinople 
during  the  twihght  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  discuss  Bol- 
shevism and  the  price  of  revolvers  with  Vladimir  Fran- 
zovitch,  as  he  sits  on  a  camp  bed  in  his  tiny  room  at 
Odessa. 

And  Time,  the  greatest  of  romantics,  has  nearly  per- 
suaded me  to  disregard  memory  and  beheve  that  I 
enjoyed  it  all. 


THE  END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


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